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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 … <\/p>\n