Yesterday to Suzhou

I wrote this yesterday but couldn't post as had no internet:

So today we headed on to Suzhou. We woke up bright and early at 8 and then maybe actually got up around 10. I spent ages getting ready as I checked my emails and got rather a long one from the Trekking Section back home. Basically it’s in trouble as it owes around £2000 and the president is a bit shit at organising… So I was frantically trying to think of ways to solve the various problems. The only reason I wish I was back in the UK is so I could fix that mess! However there’s not much I could do as I’m not the president and the one we have hates me and is determined not to do anything remotely radical or muddy the waters. Grrr.

So we checked out, got our 押金 back (*long speech in Chinese* me: “errrr” receptionist: “er…minibar?”me: “ohhh 没有! (didn’t use)”) and then caught a bus to 汽车北站, Qiche Bei Zhan, North Bus Station and joined in the queue/scrum. The next two buses were full so we got one an hour later and then went to sit in the waiting room. I did some homework and Becka read her pokemon book. Then we hopped on what we hoped was the right bus and set off. The seats were rather bizarre as they were tilted very far back and wouldn’t come more upright. Becka’s in particular was very far back which annoyed her a little. We passed several coaches destined for places like 广东, Guangdong a.k.a Canton, which are around a million miles away. Bizarrely, instead of seats they were fitted with bunk beds which I had never seen before but made sense considering how far they were going!

The countryside we passed through was quite interesting as it was the first time I’d seen China outside of a tourist city. It was mostly small fields of various vegetables as well as copses of short trees/bushes and general undergrowth. There were quite a few rivers and waterways and the land itself was very flat with hints of marshland. As Becka said, “if you squint a bit, it looks like Belgium”. Or to me, the Fenlands in the UK. It was all arable land with some duck farms on the rivers. Quite a few ducks would be hemmed in in this pen but they got a bit of the river to swim in too so I suspect they are a million times better treated than in the UK! At one river we saw a large flock of ducks that we reckoned had escaped or something. We didn’t see any other livestock- apart from about 4 goats. There were still a lot of buildings around although we saw very few people around them. Most looked like little blocks of flats in various stages of disrepair although some were quite smart. It was rather strange but the road we were travelling on was for the most part virtually empty of other vehicles. I think it underlines how most people travel long distance by train/coach in China and not by car.

The coach had a tv and an advert for the film The Expendables came on. This wasn’t really interesting in itself but the Chinese title is 敢死队, Gan Si Dui, literally- Willing to Die Team. I always find the translations of films interesting.

The coach’s sick bag was called an “Airsickness Bag” in English. Oh so close with that translation, oh so close…

Eventually we arrived in 苏州, Suzhou. The original plan had been to walk to the nearby train station and catch a bus. However we couldn’t find the train station and we were being uber-harassed by various people trying to sell us something/get us in their “taxi” (one offered to take us to our hotel for 80元. This is daylight robbery so Becka told him he was mad and he and his friends burst out laughing). Some were trying to get us on their mopeds. I didn’t fancy that. In the end we flagged a proper taxi and sought sanctuary within. It cost us 13元. One woman had tried to sell me a map for 4元 but I’d said no, too expensive, and then she ended up chasing me down the street shouting “English! English!”. In the end we realised we needed a map and I bought one off the nearest woman and it turned out to be 6元 so a bit of a fail there…

Sometimes I feel conspicuous as a Westerner…

We whizzed through Suzhou and got dropped off outside the street we wanted. First impressions of Suzhou are that it is much like Hangzhou with all the inevitable shabbiness that goes with being the lesser sister of the two. The bus stops are all rather snazzy with traditional Chinese roofs which Hangzhou didn’t have though. We walked down our road, 富仁坊巷, Furen Fang Xiang, Workshop of Abundant Benevolence Alley. We didn’t have the name of the hotel but we had the number and eventually we found it. We caught the lift to reception and marched up and with big smiles asked to check in. Nothing doing. The woman didn’t recognise our names (she grumbled about our foreign language :P) nor Ruth’s either which worried us as we couldn’t check in without them. We didn’t know Ruth’s Chinese name or her Chinese mum’s name as it was she who had made the reservation. We retreated to the Korean restaurant next door to plan a response to this. Ruth wasn’t answering our calls as she was on a plane flying over and we had until 6pm to check in. We dithered a bit and then I went back and asked if there were any reservations for foreigners. The grumpy old woman receptionist and the grumpy old man manager both said no and looked grumpy. We dithered a bit more, in the end for 2 hours, until Ruth landed and rang us up. She sent us a text containing all the details and I showed this to the manager. He read it, cursed, looked at some random clipboard, threw it down and then shouted at the young woman receptionist who put her head in her hands… I’m not sure what had happened but I think something hadn’t been entered in the computer or something… either way SUCCESS. We checked in and wandered up to the 4^th floor where we hoped room 412 would be. It wasn’t so we settled for 4412 instead and the key seemed to work so we have bagged this one. It is not quite as nice as the Hangzhou one :P However it is a lot cheaper so can’t complain. We are now just waiting for Ruth to get in from Shanghai.

Added: Ruth finally got here at around half 10 having got an unregistered taxi to Suzhou. These can be dodgy as the normal ruse is that they drive you halfway to your destionation and stop in the middle of nowhere by the side of a motorway and hike the price up a lot. Of course you have to pay or you'll be left by the side of a motorway... Luckily, and slightly oddly, Ruth's price only got hiked up £1. They could have got her life's savings and a kidney off her at that point! She'd been forced to get one as all the trains and buses were full. She was so relieved to get to Suzhou in one piece and not be sold as a sex slave by the driver. Becka and I were relieved too!

I shall write up today's tomorrow as I am rather tired from today. Today was hard work.