Ron and Amy
Go To China

Day 3

Border Crossing - Shenzhen - Bus to Yangshuo

I walked over to Amy and ask her if she knew what was going on. She was as equally confused as I was. One thing for sure, this guy was giving us the creeps. We walked quickly away from there, down a long corridor with large plate glass windows that was actually a bridge over the Shenzhen River. Then we had to show our passports to another Chinese official in order to enter the big part of China. This official seemed perfectly normal and treated as normal tourists - which we were (really). Nonetheless, I felt a lot more comfortable once we were out on the sidewalk away from all that officialness.
We followed the signs to the long-distance bus station but after about a half hour of trying to make ourselves understood to a series of bus company employees, we slowly realized it was not the correct long-distance bus station. The long-distance bus station we wanted was somewhere nearby but it wasn't marked by any signs we could read. Luckily, we had the foresight to ask the woman who had helped us in Hong Kong to write down where we needed to go in Chinese characters on a piece of paper. Then we found people who would point in the right direction. We had to go back into the official building and exit out a different set of doors, over a long pedestrian bridge, all the way around a large hotel, through an unmarked driveway and up a stairway. I swear if we didn't have that little slip of paper, we'd still be in Shenzhen today.
We weren't long at the bus station, though. We wanted to pay with a credit card, they only took cash. Now we had to go back out and find an ATM - and they're isn't one every twenty feet like in the New York City. We had to walk for close to fifteen minutes. Luckily, we showed our bank card to one of the bellhops at the hotel we had passed, and he showed us his bank card signifying that he understood, and walked us to the ATM. So we got some cash, gave the bellhop a little something, got our tickets and we got some dinner at a Japanese restaurant in the train station.
We originally thought we would have to go to Guilin first to get to Yangshuo, but then we found out that there was a bus that went directly to Yangshuo, so we took that instead. The bus was what's referred to as a sleeper bus - it had bunks instead of seats - rows along either side and a row of bunks right down the middle.
The bunks had rails on the sides so you wouldn't fall out but they weren't much wider than caskets. If you were used to sleeping sprawled out on a king or queen size bed you were out of luck. On the other hand, the mattresses were a lot more comfortable than most of the hotel beds we encountered. It was supposed to be a nine hour ride but ended being thirteen. I think I must have slept at least five hours here and there. The highway leading out of Shenzhen were very smooth and modern but at some points it was as though we were off-roading in a gravel pit.
At another point, someone had decided to repave one side of the road in the middle of the night so all the traffic had to take turns using the remaining lane.
The drivers must have nerves of steel, they would swerve into oncoming traffic constantly, passing cargo trucks, mopeds, scooters, bicycles, all kinds of crazy contraptions. I was amazed that I didn't witness any major wrecks - much less be involved in one.
At around three in the morning, I awoke to a horrible grinding of gears and the bus was losing speed. The drivers (there were two drivers who would take turns driving) were speaking very loudly in Chinese. This probably would have been a good opportunity to learn some Chinese profanity, but I was more concerned with getting to Yangshuo in one piece. We finally ground to a halt in the middle of nowhere. The driver got out his battered old tool box just like this sort of thing happened on every trip. I got out to stretch my legs and the two drivers are laying under the back of the bus with a flashlight and they were busy clanking around with their tools.
I'm thinking, this is not good. Every time one of my old cars would break down - all kinds of parts had to be replaced. Which meant the auto parts store had to be open and even then the part would probably have to be shipped from Beijing and it would take three long days sitting by the side of the road. Thankfully, my pessimism did not prevail and we were back on the highway all hunky-dory in 40 minutes.