Krystian's Corner of the Web

World Trip

Chasing Buses

We woke up shortly before the Mongolia – China border, on the train. We pulled into the station, got out to stretch out and then waited patiently, locked on the train, while the Mongolian authorities checked passports. A lot of time has passed before they got to us, and of course they had an issue with my passport. This time they offered no explanation as to what the issue was. I was pulled of the train and had to wait patiently before getting into an office where it was explained to me that they had no idea how I made it into Mongolia, why I had a visa in the American passport even though I did not need it, and why I overstayed it. Luckily, the issues were easy to tackle. I showed them my Polish passport to prove that I came from Russia and did not simply fall out of the sky. Regarding the visa, I told them to yell at the Warsaw Mongolian embassy worked who told me to get one. Finally, overstaying my two week visa was no issue at all, since I was allowed to be in the country for up to a month without a visa. Soon I rejoined the rest of the group on the train.

The train rolled slowly across the border lined with Chinese military at full salute. Poor guys had to endure the desert heat, motionless. It felt strange being in a communist country for the second time in my life.

Passport control on the Chinese side took a long time, just as expected. Luckily I had no issues here. However, Ola had to deal with getting taken off the train for some inexplicable reason. We figured it was because her hair was blonde now, and in the passport she was a brunette.

The first town in China was our final destination. Like I mentioned earlier in the journal, because of the travel peak we were not able to get train tickets into Beijing, so we needed to get off here. It was time to find a way to the capital of China.

As soon as we left the station we were assaulted by many men trying to peddle rides to Beijing, for a variety of prices. We settled on taking a sleeper bus, but had one problem. We had no Chinese yuans to pay, and needed to find a bank to exchange currency. No one spoke English, Polish, Russian, French, German or Spanish here, so we had no way of communicating. The decision was that we would put the luggage into the bus, and one of us would wait there and guard it while the rest went off and exchanged money and bought food and drink for the trip.

Weronika and I went to try to find a bank. In most of the world, this is not a problem as the word is essentially the same in many languages. Not the case here. Asking for a bank brought stares. Trying to mime an exchange of money got us offers for hotel rooms, but no bank. Standard miming did not work here. We were at a loss for actions.

As the two of us were going from place to place trying to ask for a bank, the rest of the group met us on the street. A quick head count indicated that our luggage was all alone in a bus, in a small Chinese city. WTF?!? I was mildly pissed off at the complete lack of common sense.

We did find a bank soon, and bought a bunch of food and drink. Things were quite cheap here, and the icing on the cake was that beers in the store cost about 30 cents (for a 635 ml, which is a big bottle).

We walked back towards the train station to get back on the bus. As we turned the corner, shock. The bus was not there. At this point there was no sense in exploding, because the person or people who decided it was a good idea to leave our luggage unattended felt like crap anyway. We had about an hour to get on the bus before the scheduled departure time, after we found it of course.

We sat down, cracked open some beers, and brainstormed our fate. The idea was that two people would take a taxi and drive around the city looking for the bus, and if they find it, they would send us a text message. So they did take off. A few minutes later we get a message from them that they have found the bus at a bus station and we should get there soon.

So the rest of us pile into another taxi, and explain in the best way we can that we want to the bus station. He takes off, crawling through the city at 40 km/h. We keep yelling to go faster, but the driver obviously has no concept of what we are saying. We pull up to the station, and of course, there are buses there. Problem being though that the bus we are looking for was red and these were pink. Luckily, we ran into a couple that was in the same predicament as us at the train station and took the taxi with the first two people who had found the bus, and told us that they got dropped off at the other bus station. So quickly we hop back into the taxi we came here with, and again somehow explain to go to the other bus station. This time we make sure he understands that we want to get there quickly, so he picks up the pace to 50km/h.

We pull into the other bus station to the shocking sight of two pink buses. How many bus stations can there be in this city? Before we can fully figure out what to do, a man standing outside reads the horror in our faces and tells the driver to go around the wall. We do, and there is out bus.

We pile into this bus, and it is something out of this world. It’s a standard looking modern tour-bus from the outside. On the inside, however, there are three rows of bunk beds running the length of the bus. We have our assigned places in the very back. Eventually the bus filled up, and they laid down some mattresses in the isles for even more people. Filled to capacity we take off for Beijing.

The bus ride is interesting. We are of course drinking cold beers to cool off in the hear and laughing at the ridiculousness of the recent baggage situation, and pondering the fact that we actually made it to China. The beds in the bus are very tight, and arranged in such a way that one’s feet are actually below the inclined headrest of the person in front. Things keep falling down onto us from bunks above.

Along the way we stop rarely on the side of the road, and everyone piles out to relieve themselves and smoke cigarettes. We take a longer break for dinner and meet some other travelers we had met in UB two days ago at a club. Strange, small world.

Late in the evening, as we are driving, the bus suddenly veers left and right, and stops shortly. We slowly get out and somehow word gets to us that we hit a bike. Sure enough, the fender is bent. We are stopped for a long time, so we get back on the bus and fall asleep.

In the middle of the night I wake up to someone touching my feet. Actually, someone is slapping my feet. As I regain consciousness I have a hard time connecting with where I am at. Finally, it all becomes clear. I am on a sleeper bus, somewhere in China, headed for Beijing, and the lady in the bed in front of me is slapping my feet which I stretched out over her head. I feel bad, tuck my feet back into their proper place, and fall asleep for good.

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