EcoLog13 - The 30 Second Bus Ride

Day 6 – The 30 Second Bus Ride - 24 June 08 (15km walk)

Good start to the morning with the hotel buffet breakfast and the discovery that they have an espresso machine – yum very good coffee! We then asked at reception for the location of a pharmacy to buy some plasters for the blisters that we were both coping with. One of the “Pront Desk” ladies (yes that is the spelling on the sign at reception) offered to guide us. Firstly a slight miscommunication had us in the local doctor’s surgery. Finally got the message through and off we walked to the local pharmacy. Merrin bought the required goods while Lou wandered around looking at the Western and Chinese medicines on display and snapping off a couple of pictures. A lady holding a child was buying a range of Chinese medicines. Lou took a photo and then went to say hi to the kid at which point all hell broke loose! One screaming child…obviously found it all too much having this blond blue eyed monster leering at it! Time to make a hasty retreat much to the amusement of the locals in the pharmacy (including to mother of the child)!

We decided on a later start to the walk today as it was a very warm day. Set off with two taxi driver friends of the Bell Boy – sheer luxury…two cabs instead of all five of us jammed into one. Off we went down the straight road to the north of the city sailing past the turn off that yesterdays rogue of a taxi driver had turned off for our wild goose chase, with the total journey time all of 15mins at a cost of less than 15Yuan each taxi!!!

Back at the clock tower restaurant we tried to no avail, to get them to organise a boat to cross the side canal to continue on our journey. Set off hoping to hail someone with a small boat to take us across, or heaven forbid walk an extra 5kms down the road to cross the canal then back to the point opposite on the other side of the canal. Time to project all our positive thoughts into manifesting a boat to take us across, as we were really not keen to walk extra kilometres. Within 5mins we had hailed a passing barge tempting them with 20Yuan. The wife unhooks the row boat and rows over to us and takes us across the canal. We are all happy! We have saved our feet. She has made 20Yuan and now only has to row herself back to the barge…that had motored off upstream without her!

The walk was fairly uneventful. Continued along the embankment alongside brick works for about 10kms with the view then changing to coal dumps (the coal is loaded onto barges and taken down the Grand Canal). Walked 14kms in total ending up at the road bridge across the lake that we want to walk across tomorrow. We stopped for a beer and a chat to the locals before heading back to Peixian. We could have phoned this morning’s cab driver to come and pick us up but decided to wait for the local bus. Thus began our next big adventure…

Bus eventually pulls up and the conductor lady gets off to ask the locals who we were. On she hops and off we trundle. Konomi asked for the price and first she says 15Yuan – Which we thought was the total for all five of us and would be a good price. But oh, no, no…it was 15Yuan each, which then escalated to 100Yuan for all of us. Once again daylight robbery!!! Paul spat the dummy and insisted the bus stop…which it did in the middle of a long bridge. As Paul was trying to leave the bus the woman conductor was manhandling him trying desperately with Yuan signs in her eyes, to make us stay on the bus. We eventually all managed to get off the bus with her following continuing to yell and try to force us back on the bus. Konomi was doing written translations and finally showed her the word “thief” at which point she hastily got back on the bus and off it went leaving us in the middle of the bridge. We walked to the other side and a helpful chap on a motorcycle phoned our cab driver and explained where to pick us up from. Cab turned up in about 20mins and we paid 40Yuan to get back to Peixian!!!

Todays lesson… Some people actually really believe that it is ok to try to embezzle money from foreigners. They think we have a lot of money. Greed takes over and they try to extract as much of it as they can. There is no conception that this is theft. One really needs to be fully aware of the value of the endeavour that is being undertaken at any one time when travelling off the beaten track in China. Thankfully for us we are in the back blocks with Paul and Konomi, who after 10 months of walking from Hong Kong en-route to Beijing, know very well cost of the various forms of transport and accommodation etc!

We went out for a meal with Andrew that night as a way to thank him for his efforts the night before. Paul, Konomi and Yuji had headed for another restaurant. Had a great meal with Andrew while learning more about the local area.

Grow well
Dr Merrin