I’m pleased to say that our first Chinese sleeper bus did indeed have wipers. We’re clearly going up in the world. Initially, it was all still a little surreal, as we were urgently ushered by an angry Chinese lady into what seemed like a random 8-seater minibus. After about an hour of confusion and slight worry we’d been kidnapped, we were dropped off at our sleeper coach, and all was right again.
So, we arrived in Xiamen around 5am, in the pitch black, with that oh-so-familiar question hanging over us: ‘What do we do now?’ We were also faced with something very UNfamiliar- no hoards of taxi hasslers! After a quick consultation of good old Lonely Planet (which apparently can be confiscated at immigration, so we were lucky!), we headed to the ferry terminal, to catch a boat over to the pretty island of Guluang-Yu.
It was at this ferry terminal that we’d have our first of many ‘language barrier’ encounters in Xiamen. By the time we reached there, we were both literally on the verge of wetting ourselves (TMI, probably), so asked a random Chinese guy reading a newspaper. ‘Toilet?’ Blank look. Getting desperate, I tried whooshing hand motions between my leg to get the point across; he still looked blank (should’ve guessed that, really!) We had to whip out the Mandarin dictionary, show the right Chinese characters for ‘toilet’, until he pointed to the men’s toilets 100m from us. Actually getting hot flushes from pee-desperation, I ran to the women’s; they were shut. This was more than I could take. I sprinted to the men’s and started a whole new mime show with the guy in the gents, my legs doing some sort of Irish jig. It took the original guy stepping into the toilets to explain what I needed before I was allowed in, and by this time I didn’t even need the toilet that much anymore. Travelling India without extensive knowledge of Hindi was possible, but it became clear that we would have to brush up on our Mandarin pretty sharp-ish…
Anyway, we boarded the free ferry to Guluang-Lu, which seemed like a ghost town in the early morning mist. We began the accommodation search- everywhere was full, full and full again! By the time we reached the fourth place, they were full too, but we couldn’t lift our weary selves from their squidgy sofas. After half an hour of vowing to move but failing, the owner eventually took pity on us and brought us a pot of green tea- on the house! We were so touched by this kindness that we decided to stay for breakfast, which happened to be the best blooming decision ever- BACON! This certainly pepped us up again, and it was time to explore this tranquil island.
All the peace of the early morning had been replaced with literally dozens of Chinese tour groups, 50 man strong, all led by flag-carrying, enthusiastic young Chinese folk wearing head-microphones and talking into them CONSTANTLY and LOUDLY. I guess that’s their job, but we were nearly deafened a few times! The twisting alleyways made it easy to find a few moments of peace, as well as a few unusual sights…
Down one alley, we found a plethora of seafood restaurants. I’m quickly learning that the term ‘fresh seafood’ is taken to a whole new level in China, after spying fish and lobster tanks within restaurants in Shezhen. In Guluang-Yu, different types of seafood were all plonked, alive of course, into shallow red buckets at the front of the restaurant- crabs, eels, lobsters, and all sorts of fish were swimming around and occasionally jumping to freedom! Wandering down another alley into the main square, we saw about 10 groups of old Chinese people, almost symmetrically placed, all playing mysterious card games.
Seriously impressed with the breakfast bacon, we went back to that same hotel for lunch, and got a recommendation for a hotel that they were sure had availability. What this suggested hotel did NOT have, however, was an easy-to-find location. This was not helped by the single most annoying road-naming system I have ever come across. All the roads in one specific area have the same name. Straight ahead? Fuxing Lu. First road on the left? Fuxing Lu. Second road on the right? BLOODY FUXING LU! The question was, which Fuxing Lu were you on the map? After going round and round the same church for about an hour, we eventually decided to take some stairs up to the spot where the map claimed the hotel should be, despite no hotel sign (that we could read).
We were greeted by a wild, sprawling garden with the odd splash of vivid reds and yellows; I felt like I was Mary entering the Secret Garden for the first time! Behind these tangled weeds stood a grey, two storey house that looked too homely to be a hotel, with its washing lines and peeling paint. Having come this far, we kept on walking into the house, but couldn’t find anybody. Eventually, a little smiley Chinese lady came up to us and asked something in Mandarin. Cue ‘language barrier’ encounter number two…
For about 10 minutes, we had a useless system whereby we’d try to ask ‘How much are your rooms?’ in Mandarin, she wouldn’t understand us, we’d show her the Chinese characters in the dictionary, she’d understand, then write the answer in Chinese characters that we didn’t understand. After a while, an old man came to the rescue of both of us; he spoke no English, but wrote down the essential numbers that we needed to know. With great relief, we accepted, saying ‘sorry’ over and over for being so ignorant in Mandarin. She was such a sweet lady; all of us were in good humour about the whole thing, and even seemed proud that we’d somehow managed to communicate! It was especially hilarious filling in the check-in form, with us guessing what each heading meant, and the lady not understanding anything we’d written anyway!
Our hunch that it was more like a home than a hotel was correct! We saw the Chinese lady’s 6-year old son being scolded for not concentrating on his homework, and as we tried to get to sleep, we heard the Chinese lady having a domestic with her husband! I actually enjoyed the challenge of escaping the typical foreigner’s hotels, and being forced to use the country’s language to communicate. That’s what traveling is all about, right? This house has the potential to sparkle and shine like it did in its glory days- but then it would lose the raw, undiscovered quality that makes it so charming.
So, with a minor debacle of getting train tickets out of Xiamen aside (‘language barrier’ encounter number three), that evening and the following day were pretty relaxed. We even ended up at the beach at one point, chilling with a few bottles of TsingTao’s (the local beer) and watching the fully-clothed Chinese tourists taking photos of themselves in sexy poses, and of a man waving a rattling paper rainbow snake. Good times. Speaking of photos, there seemed to be a 2 day bridal photoshoot going on, with the most beautiful Chinese girls trying on stunning dresses in the middle of the lanes. We tried to sneak in a few shots, but I’m not sure that we were beautiful enough (well, Patrick isn’t anyway…JOKING!)
On that note, guess where I am as I write this? On a 34 HOUR train to Beijing (now you know why this blog post is so long, ha!) It was the only place we could get to from Xiamen, so we thought, why not? Clinically clean, quilted blankets, air-con, continual food carts passing through (with beer too!)…we’re impressed with Chinese trains so far, especially compared to India’s dark, dingy efforts (although we are missing the calls of ‘garam chai!’) Maybe not so impressed with the Chinese pop music that’s occasionally piped through, or the crazy Chinese lady that keeps staring at us…See you in Beijing- 18 hours down, only 16 to go!
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