FROM SHANGHAI TO LONDON BY TRAIN: China: Taiyuan

After ten minutes sleep it was time to get off and I could barely walk straight because of the pain that flushed through my body. Suddenly our new Chinese friend showed-up again and kept telling us to stay in a cheap hotel near his college in Taiyuan, our destination. We declined at first and the three of is went to a cheap hotel by the station as recommend in the thoroughly useless Lonely Planet, which stated that dorms were from ¥25 a night. The miserable looking receptionist muttered ¥50 to our new Chinese friend (who was called Young) so we contested that we were once again being conned. After a brief speech from the miserable lady, Young turned to us and translated:
“she says that you have to pay a high rate because you can’t share with other Chinese people in a dorm.”
“What?!” we replied, and he continued:
“because she says it is the law of China, so you have to get your own room.” Having never before encountered such disgustingly unashamed racism before, we marched straight out swearing out loud in our unrecognisable English.
So we followed Young to the hotel near his college. “We need to get a bus” he explained”, “only ten minutes”.
After a twenty minute bus journey we started walking through his college. “It’s a three minute walk, only a short walk.”
Ten minutes later, we arrived at the hotel were Young told us it was ¥58 for a double room. Oh great, at last. Having been so sick and drained of all my regular senses, it was a relief to find somewhere to crash. As we got ready to pay, Young explained that the ¥58 would cover us for only twelve hours.
“But it’s now 9am” I said, “so we would have to leave at 9pm or pay another ¥58?”
“Yes” confirmed an increasingly useless Young, “well, you could stay at my place if you like. I have spare beds.”
“Really?” I said, a flood of doubt flowing over me, “two spare beds in your university room?” I just couldn’t imagine it but sure enough, when we entered his room, we found four sets of bunk beds, as well as a wet concrete floor, rubbish and books everywhere, and two spare beds. The dorm hallway stunk of urine and sewage. None of the taps in the bathrooms worked and all of the squat-style toilets had crap smeared on the floor.
Chris went out for the day while I dozed on and off all day, trying to get over the food bug. I got up at six o’clock in the evening to buy some pure juice at the local supermarket (it seemed to be a rare and expensive product) and a small loaf of bread, being the first bit of food I’d eaten in 24 hours. Chris returned and I went back to bed.

I felt better the next morning and ready to tackle the three to six hour journey to Wu-Tai-Shan, a sleepy village built around Buddhist temples and monasteries (according to the Lonely Planet). Having spent an hour trying to get to the right bus station, we found ourselves constantly harassed by a dirty looking man in a jacket who wanted to do everything for us. I was deeply suspicious, especially when he led us to the only battered minibus that was parked amongst a row of gleaming small coaches. I didn’t want to get on it. I could foresee us stopping off in every tiny town and going to Wu-Tai-Shan via the most roundabout route possible. And that’s exactly what followed, for six hours.
The dirty jacket man got on our aging minibus and shouted at everybody we passed, trying to convince them that they wanted to go to Wu-Tai-Shan. He looked like a moron. The driver didn’t look any better. In fact he was more moronic: as we drove up the mountains, riding in thin mountain-edge roads that plummeted into mist, he was using his cell phone, driving at full speed with one hand which contained a lighted cigarette which he was also smoking.
Each sharp corner had a large rounded mirror, vital to see if you were safe to turn into the corner without hitting anyone from the opposite direction, but all of these were smashed. How the hell did they get smashed all the way up there? UFOs? Angry birds?
There was a gate to the entrance of Wu-Tai-Shan town, and we needed to pay a ¥90 entrance ticket. Now, everyone else on the bus had paid ¥45 but for some reason, we had to pay ¥90 which I later discovered was for the previous year’s peak-season ticket. It read ‘2005’ when we should have paid ¥45 for this year’s off-season ticket. Ripped off again. I was getting very tired of it. It just wasn’t funny anymore.
We checked in at a hotel that was pleasantly situated by a river filled with rubbish and went for a walk around. We climbed a small hill and found ourselves in the most peaceful and genuinely moving area so far. It was a Buddhist temple, of which we peaked through the huge wooden doors at a troop of monks in ceremony, chanting and walking into the main temple room while other monks hit drums gently. We were away from all the craziness and clutter, and for that sort moment, I was so happy to be there.

The next day was infuriating. We got nothing done, didn’t see anything and got ripped-off even more. The Chinese will rip you off and it’s not a case of being wise against it, they simply leave you with no other choice. In other words, they won’t allow you to pay the same as the Chinese or they’ll make it virtually impossible for you to do so.
We spent most of the day trying to locae a bus station and a computer room which were marked on the almost useless Lonely Planet map of Wu-Tai-Shan. Every other person shouted “hello” to us and tried to get us to buy something or get in their taxi. People trying to get us to use their taxi was the funniest. As if we’d spontaneously decide to take a taxi somewhere because someone said “hello”.
We eventually found the one computer room in the town and when we started to use them, we found we couldn’t access hotmail at all. After trying for ten minutes we returned to the fat woman who we had to pay up front, and asked for our money back. She refused to fully refund us and after twenty minutes of reasoning, nothing changed. Then we had to pay ¥60 for a ¥45 coach ticket to our next town from the hotel because we never found the bus station. The only nice things that day were a climb up a few hundred steps to a nice view of the town, and dinner.
After dinner, I started really thinking about Aki and burst into tears as I thought about how lonely she might be now and how I made her happy. I felt so guilty for leaving her. Although we both knew there was no future to our relationship, she gave no impression of really believing that, and that really cut me up. Me and Chris talking about her and he calmed me down as he relayed the facts to me straight: she wanted to get married and have a baby. I wanted to do so many things in my life first. She was 29. I was 25. In Japan, marriage values are more traditional and the pressure to be married with kids was much higher for a 29 year old woman in Japan than in England. We had a great time together, and really loved each other, but it couldn’t last.
The bus left at 8am and again, people were being rounded up and convinced they wanted to go to wherever the bus was going. We had to change buses halfway. Moving from an uncomfortable bus to a more uncomfortable bus. We passed through the mountains again, making precarious turns on small mountain roads across plains of indented hills, with huge ridges, like giant steps.