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Shenzhen to Xiamen and Gulang Yu (April 28) · Apr 29, 02:25 AM

Yesterday was very long, and very crazy. Now I’m settled in an HI hostel in Gulang Yu just off the coast of Xiamen, I’ve managed to escape the dark mood which was ruining my experience of a perfectly amazing Hong Kong. This was recovered from notes taken yesterday:

I’m stuck in traffic, on a bus. I think the bus is taking me to Xiamen, but the whole operation is adventuresome and sketchy. I offhandedly tell I guy in the Shenzhen bus station where I’m going. He rushes me to a restaurant, where a guy slurping lunch and talking on his phone scribble out a ticket, and I pay the girls behind a small counter about twice what I expected (200 Yuan). Then I’m rushed — along with another fellow — away from the bus station, across several busy streets, so a shady seating area with parked cars, wet seats (it’s raining lightly), and men playing cards.

Ten minutes pass and then a car pulls up. We’re supposed to get in. We do, and the car drops us off at a bus stop 10 minutes away, where I climb into a minibus with about half a dozen other travellers waiting. Finally, a bus arrives. Now I know I’m not being totally taken. Maybe.

All this is because of the holiday traffic. The first week of May is a big national holiday, and booking travel and accommodations is … not easy. At Shenzhen all the trains going everywhere were booked solid for about 2 days. Maybe you can imagine trying to go from Boston by train to DC on the morning of Thanksgiving. Only, you’re a German tourist with very little English. And the bus you find yourself on doesn’t drop you off at the official station, it drops you off outside and on the far side of town, where a minibus shuttles you to the inside of the far side of town.

The bus ride was gorgeous, though. Rice patties and cities and mountains. Oxen and motocyclers and rivers. Beautiful terrain.

In Xiamen I broke down and got into a taxi, but arrived at the ferry station too late to get to Gulang Yu, which is a small touristy island off of Xiamen. Instead, the taxi driver found me a very cheap room at a three-star hotel where I crashed. The next morning I walked back across town to the ferry station and got myself to Gulang Yu. It was the “wrong” ferry, to be sure. I had to walk for an hour across the island, up stone steps, down stone steps, along beaches, through forests, next to decaying colonial mansions and giant trees.

I’m glad for the walk, but I’m gladder that I was able to get a room. I’m gladder still that the hostel was able to book a train ticket to Jiujiang on May 1. From there I will take a bus to the northeast corner of Jiangxi province to Wuyuan county, where I will hunker down for the remainder of the holiday, if I can.

* * *

  1. tom, just got your blog address from mom and dad, will try and catch up on your travels in the near future…any thoughts toward a digital camera if you were to buy a new one…we need to get a litle more current than our yashica t-4, tad

    — tad    May 2, 09:52 PM    #

  2. I’m not up on the current state, but I’ve been happy with my Pentax Optio (S4i and then S5i). It does very poorly in indoor/low-light situations, however.

    — Tom    May 17, 12:05 AM    #

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