Boy, have we had a time gettin' out of Beijing! We're still here, but we've got tickets to ride. Two tickets to Guilin, to be exact. It's been a long time comin'.
We got here Thursday. Once we got our legs under us on Friday, everything was closed for the weekend. We needed access to banks and embassies and Beijing is one of the few places to get visas for Vietnam and Laos. So, we took the weekend off, touring around the city and visiting old haunts.
But since Monday, we've put in our 9-to-5 figuring everything out. And by everything, I mean: where to get visas and how much they cost; conversion rates (Dollar to RMB to Dong to Baht); train tickets, fares, routes, costs and times; navigation within Beijing; travel agencies and their locations; and, um, the language barrier. Shouldn't a lot of this info be in English on the internet? Not so. China's blasting its way into the 21rst century but a lot of it still works on paper and face-to-face transactions.
And the train stations! Oh, the train stations! They are notoriously chaotic, aggressive and unitelligble to foreigners. The queques are a mosh-pit, English is virtually non-existent and the halls are an echo chamber of barking amplifiers and hollering Chinese. In 2000, Jim saw a grown western man brought to tears after trying to buy a train ticket. Yesterday, we saw a western woman teary-eyed. Today, we saw a white man literally pulling his hair in frustration. What a mess.
For instance, if you just want to check on a train that doesn't leave from the main station, you've got to go to another station, wait in a very long line, shove past the people who've shoved past you, and spit out your mandarin in hopes of an answer while the people behind you get progressively pissed-off. Most likely, the answer will be: Go to another line and start over.
Enough on that. I digress.
Don't get me wrong, we don't want to leave China, we just want to escape from Beijing.
Beijing is the center of Chinese dogmatism, nationalism, and Mao iconography. The government's hand is heavy here. From my previous Chinese travels, I've learned things get more relaxed the farther you go from Beijing. Neither Jim nor I has seen Vietnam or Laos, but we've heard and read that they're both easier-going and possibly easier to get around in. We've been trying to head south for several days now.
Our main problem has been the direct train to Hanoi. It only leaves on Sundays and Thursday and it's booked until next Thursday, September 6. That would be another week in Beijing! So, we have figured the fastest way out is a train to a border city in the south. It's not Vietnam, but it's closer than Beijing. And that's why we bought the ticket for Guilin today, which went over swimmingly. We leave in the morning.
We've got a hard sleeper and nothin to lose.
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