Today I made my second attempt at seeing one of the largest caves in China. I woke up at 5:30 after not getting much sleep at all the night before. Then I rushed to check out of my room and then get a taxi to take me to the bus station. I was hoping the first bus was at 6:30, but it was at 7:00, which I knew would start to make things tough for me. The bus left 10 minutes late, but then after a little while it got a flat tire and spent about 30 minutes changing that. The rest of the 5 hour ride was very wild and bumpy winding around mountain valleys. A man near me vomited, for the 3rd time in one week! Along with public spitting and urinating, vomiting must be normal in China too. I guess it is all the same when you think about it.
My goal was to get to the cave and back in one day, but it was looking like at least 6 hours before I could even enter the cave, and then 2-3 hours to see the cave. Plus I wanted to catch a train later in the night. I decided I would turn around while I was in the city of Zhijin. I didn’t want to get stuck in this strange city all alone with little to no hotels. I did stay there for lunch and to see the dirtiest toilet I’ve ever seen in my life.
The ride back was a little less stressful because of the decision I made. And I wasn’t feeling too bad because I had just seen some nice caves yesterday. I did get some nice people photos from the bus window through a slow, crowded street in a village.
When I arrived back in Guiyang, I was lost. But then soon found out I was on the opposite side of the bus station I left from. Then I had to deal with rush hour traffic. I made the mistake of getting inside a bus when I saw people walking outside faster than me. Finally I asked the driver to open the door and I got out, walked the rest of the way to my hostel and got my bag. Then I took a bus with a slow driver to the train station and stood in line for a while for tickets. I saw the guy in front of me buy tickets for the train I wanted. So I tried the same thing, saw it was the same price for me and got a ticket. I was about to walk into the waiting room and noticed it was the wrong train! I got a ticket fro 3228 leaving at 8:33PM, not 3002 leaving at 7:50PM. I don’t know why I was sold the other one, maybe because I was too close to the departure time (5-10minutes) or the train was full? But it was mostly my fault because I didn’t confirm the number. It is stressful standing there with 50 people in line behind you.
I didn’t want to get on this train because it would arrive in Chongqing too late to make the bus/boat down the Yangzi river through the famous Three Gorges. I had no time to stand in line again, so I decided to go back to the hostel. And if I still wanted to take this train, I had 45 minutes to get back. I took the bus, got back quickly and asked for a room. They took my passport and membership card like they were going to check me in, but 5-10 minutes later they said no beds! Why didn’t they say that earlier? This is the only hostel in the entire province, so I had to go back to the train station. I took a bus again, but arrived outside the station at 8:33PM (the time of departure). I hoped the train would be a little late. I got through security and ran inside at 8:34PM, but all the signs for the train disappeared. It was on time, and I missed it.
I have no choice but to take the next train, so I went back to the ticket office, stood in the long line in the room with hundreds of other people again. I know I can use my unused ticket as credit to get a new one. Once I got to the front of the line, I found out I was standing in the wrong line for doing that. I was directed to another place and got another ticket that left about 10:30PM for Chongqing.