"Wuxho and night boat to Canton"

3rd January (Day Twenty Nine)

The short time spent here I shall remember always, as for me, it was such a relief to find a place like Yángshuò where I was able to just relax and hang-out in the cafe’s, after all I was on holiday and after the stomach sickness I had suffered, I deserved a holiday! Nevertheless, today it was back to the ’hustle and bustle’ of back-packing as I had to be up in time to catch the 6.00am bus to Wúzhõu also in the Guângxï Province.

The bus left more or less on time from the bus station, after an enormous amount of confusion due to so many people all trying to get to their bus with nobody speaking any English to be able to help us. The ticket that I had purchased was a through ticket from Yángshuò to Canton which is a coastal port right on the the southern tip of the country. This was to be my final destination in China.

The journey was to be at least nine hours on the bus to Wúzhõu followed by an overnight boat trip to Canton where we should arrive the next morning. The amazing factor was the cost of the journey, only Y38! (£3.80).

The day was in someways fairly uneventful and became quite boring despite the fact that we were traversing the countryside of China! The bus was very old and there was no leg room at all. This was something that I had come across before when travelling on buses, as they make them for the Chinese people who, in general, are all fairly short. This was all very well for them but for a foreigner travelling on the bus they became very uncomfortable after only a few minutes. A Few seats ahead, on the left, was a woman and child who left an impression on me when the little girl had to go to the toilet. In China the children do not wear nappies of any description, instead they have the crutch of their trousers un-sewn so that they can go to the toilet without messing their clothes. In China the average person’s view of a floor is that it is there to put the dirt on, and that goes for the floor of a bus as well! You can imagine my horror when the lady held her child over the aisle of the bus and allowed it go to the toilet (Number 1 and 2’s!), and then calmly lift her back onto the seat and just carried on as if nothing was the matter, leaving us to gaze at the mess left behind!

The driver of the bus was very irritating with the way that he drove the vehicle. I never felt safe during the entire journey while he was at the wheel. He had a most annoying habit of turning the engine off when the bus would get to the top of a hill, consequently allowing it to coast down the other side until it reached the bottom where, he would put it back into gear and let the clutch out and re-start the engine. This, I can only assume, was to try and save fuel during the journey although I was never actually one hundred percent sure. Even if a passenger wanted to get on, as quick as a flash the engine would be turned off and the bus left to coast along the road until it neared the bus stop where the person was waiting. He then had to jump onto the bus just as the driver would let out the clutch to restart the engine, and away we went again. Anyway it was a very long nine hours to Wúzhõu.

When Fredrick and I arrived at the town of Wúzhõu, we first decided to go and get a nice meal as we had not eaten anything all day long and we were starving. We walked along the streets looking for a restaurant where we could get something nice to eat and we were thinking that money was no problem just as long as the food was good. However, we were almost straight away put-off by the food that was displayed outside the restaurants. It ranged from beautiful birds of prey which looked like falcons, to an absolutely exquisite looking Owl, I assumed all of them were on the menu! Another restaurant had a very frightened monkey that looked and acted as if it had been someone’s pet as it kept holding it’s hand out to us. We assumed it was asking for food or just wanted to hold our hand, that was how tame it appeared. The waiter of the restaurant looked over and, grinning from ear to ear, gestured that we could eat it if we wanted to....the thought made me want to vomit! It was the same story in every restaurant that we walked by, they had beautiful birds in cages, live snakes, fish and eels all on display. Anyway, going back to our meal, it was nice and, I am pleased to say consisted mainly of vegetables and rice with a couple of bottles of bear to wash it down.

At 7.00pm Fredrick and I went to the dock to board the boat that would take us through the night along the Gui river and onto the port of Canton where we were to arrive at 9.30am the following morning. I was a little worried about the boat navigating the river at night, however I kept telling myself that they did it every night, and that they know where all the shallow spots were.

The ticket had printed on it the number of our bunk, so when we got to the correct cabin all we had to do was locate our bed for the night, the only problem was that the ticket was third class which was the lowest class I had travelled in during my stay here. We were amazed to see one hundred and thirty six beds in one cabin! The beds were very short in length and the top bunk was only waist high which meant that the person on the bottom bunk was almost on the floor. As well as the beds not being very long they were also extremely narrow which meant that I would be as close to the person in the next bed as if I was actually sleeping with him! It was for this reason that I decided to sleep opposite to the people on my left and right, which meant that I had my head to the window which in the true Chinese standard, was draughty as hell and did not shut properly. "Just my luck", I thought.

During the evening we met quite a few Chinese people who were going to Canton either to buy something or to do business with someone there. Most spoke good English and I lent one of them my Walkman to listen to as he was so amazed by the size and quality of the sound it reproduced. When he bought it back a couple of hours later the batteries were flat, he was so sorry that he had "broken it", or at least that was what he thought. Try as hard as I could, I could not make him understand that he had not broken it, the batteries had just run out. In the end I had to get someone that could translate for me, and even then he would not accept the explanation given to him. The overall innocence of the situation was amusing whilst at the same time sad, when I realised that something that we take for granted should distress another person so much, it was only a flat battery after all!

The rest of the night was fairly quiet and I think I slept fairly well considering my worries about sinking, or the boat running aground and leaving me stranded!

4th January (Day Thirty)

We were woken up at the first sign of day light by, and I would not have believed it if I had not been there, the sound of cockerels crowing to the sunrise. It appeared that almost everyone on board the boat had bought with them at least one form of animal or bird and they all started to go...."Cocka-doodle-dooooo" at the same time!

Once up and awake, I walked around the boat and got chatting with some people that I had seen the previous night but never actually got talking to. One of them was an American who had slept in his own private cabin, I told him that he was lucky as he had not had to put up with all the farm yard animals that I had in my communal cabin.It transpired thought, that he wished that he had slept with us, due to the fact that all through the night and into the morning, he had a constant stream of rats passing through his cabin which tended to keep him awake!

Read Neils complete adventure here.