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22 August: Pansegui

We were up just after 06h20 and ready to go, bags on our backs at 07h00. We met Mama inside with Andrew who would accompany us to the train station. We were given some fruit by her for our travels, a banana and apple each. It had been raining hard the evening and had shown no signs of subsiding in the early hours of the morning. At least the minivan mama had organised for us, was waiting outside the guest house, instead of the 2 km walk to the parking lot in the rain.

We arrived at the train station and waited inside for our bus, it was scheduled to leave at 07h50, about another 30 minutes wait. Meanwhile we chatted with Andrew, he was also in the finance market and had studied CIMA. The year before he had quit his job in the UK after not making the director promotion and decided to travel the world. To date he had traveled Central and South America, Australia, New Zealand and all the Asian countries. In total he had traveled 1 year and 4 months and was planning to complete his 2 years before looking for work abroad.

We were called for our bus (+/- 22 ppl) and boarded, the most amazing thing happened next. An alarm sounded at exactly 07h50, the bus driver next to us started his bus as clockwork. Our driver came running, jumped in and also started his reversing and waiting for the conductor to board before leaving the bus station. While we drove out a row of officials had formed on the platform.

The bus drive continued as any other, we had made 2 hours of our journey, before the bus driver pulled over, next a man got on the bus said a few words and the whole bus erupted, people were shouting at him and we were totally lost in translation. He disappeared and 20 minutes later a woman appeared who started to collect money, we weren't sure what was happening and tried to find someone who spoke English and could explain. The woman next to us told us in her broken English that the road was dangerous and we had to take an alternative road and pay Y13 each! Talk about a road tax on ordinary citizens. Everyone else had paid and we didn't think we would be able to get out of it without paying.

We continued on with our route, driving through small streets of a village to a road leading through the mountains. The road was incredibly narrow and two cars passing was an issue in its own, secondly it wasn't a tar road, rather it looked like an ancient road built for chariots, built with cobble stones just larger than fist size. After driving another 1 ½ hours in the rain the bus driver decided to stop at some arb place in the middle of nowhere. Everyone ran out in search of toilets in the rain, there were none, only the good old bush in the pouring rain. Quite funny considering we set out with our umbrellas for our bush toilet...

The drive up the mountains were extremely steep, at one stage we continued on for more than 30 minutes scaling the side of one mountain, the mist also didn't make things any easier and the visibility was only a few meters at a time. Surprisingly enough we reached the top of the mountain only to find two pillars with a lintel atop signifying the highest point. Immediately after we started on a descend and the mist was gone, not exactly blue sky, but at least it wasn't raining. 30 minutes of drive further on an ascent the bus stopped, we were almost on top of the mountain so no one understood the stop. The driver tried to start the bus, no luck! The bus would start and then a few seconds later die, it just wouldn't idle. The bus driver got out walked around and that was the last we saw of him. We waited there for another 1 ½ hour, most of it standing outside to enjoy the fresh air, umbrella in hand as light rains fell. At last a bus arrived accompanied by our bus driver and a can of GAS!!!!!

We filled her up and drove up the rest of the mountain and down part of it before coming to a stop again. A line of vehicles had formed on the other side of the mountain. Unsure of what it was but glad we could stop at a place where there might be food we went in search of food. We hadn't eaten the morning, planning to eat at the bus station, that hadn't happened, so we thought we would stop for lunch , due to our route change that also didn't realize. It was now 17h00 and all we had was 2 rotten banana's, after consuming half of one we discarded them both and continued with the sour apples. The Chinese on the other side, had been eating constantly the whole day! There was one little shop, she had 2 minute noodles that one adds water to the carton container and then eat it. She had shown us Y7, but when I paid her with a Y10, she told me it was Y10, I tried halfheartedly to get change, but it was a loosing battle. We ate the spicy noodles just there on the sidewalk before walking down the line of trucks and buses to see what the problem was. A bus and a truck had collided at a corner, the bus had carried the brunt of the damage, loosing its window and a bit of fender bends. As we stood there they started pulling them apart and soon after that the vehicles started to pass the collision.

We continued down behind two trucks, the one in front of us tried eagerly to pass the front one on various hideous occasions. On one of them there was a stretch where a landslide had occurred and on the other side of the road a tree had fallen and was still protruding into the road. It was a near collision, but he realized it in time. Not a kilometer further was a car that had collided with the side and another 2 kilometers further was a crane which was trying to lift a car that had skidded of the road and fell down the embankment. Our bus driver was visibly frustrated, where he had driven slowly earlier he had a haste in him to arrive at our destination. Must say it did make us a bit uneasy.

At last we had finished with the mountains and all the winding roads, we came to a valley filled with industrial complexes, most were operational, but one they were currently building was gigantic, from our lofty view the total construction project looked between 2 to 3 km squared. Other complexes were no less significant and judging from the pollution being emitted at 19h00 in the evening from the chimneys, one can only conclude that the large river flowing past contained significant amounts of effluent dispensed by these factories. We continued on to the city through which we drove for longer than 45 minutes before arriving at the bus station. The total journey that was supposed to take 8 to 10 hours at most but in the end it took us 13 hours!

The bus station was desolate at just over 21h00, all that was abound were the taxi's and they were like flies around a carcass. We waved them off trying to find out whether there was a bus to Chengdu, we tried a hotel where with the help of our Mandarin phrase book we concluded there was none and we would need to get to the train station. Back outside the haggling started, taxi's wanted Y50 for the trip, but one mini van wanted Y40. We met two other Chinese students who also wanted to go to the station and spoke a little English. In the end we went together splitting the costs of the minivan. The drive from the bus station to the train station took us more than 30 minutes through the city. We're not sure how it looked during the day, but at night with the lights and the river flowing through it it was a picturesque city. The girl said the city was so lengthy because they had built it along the river.

We arrived at the train station in search of tickets, unfortunately there were only standing tickets available for the 12 hour journey. We had hoped for a hard sleeper or at least a seat, but they were all sold out. We bought the tickets and headed to a restaurant across from the parking lot. There we ordered noodles and rice with pork and vegetables, really good. The rest of the time which we waited for the train, they helped us with our Chinese pronunciation and spoke about what they studied and where they had traveled. I left to buy some supplies for the journey, noodles, cookies and soft drinks. When I returned they had realised that they forgot their jackets in the minivan that had brought us from the bus station. They canceled their tickets to stay another day and look for the owner of the van the day after. Not wanting to stand the full duration of the way, we bought little plastic stools for 10Y each, that toddlers would have used in a cresh, they were no taller than 30cm! According to the 2 chinese we could use them to sit in the aisles.

We departed ways and spent the remainder of the 2 hours at the station waiting for our train. While in the bathroom, I met a guy from Argentina who was studying in Chengdu, he was part of a band, many of the members whom were African were also with him, returning from a gig. We met up with them later, chatting to some of the members who were from a country next to the Ivory cost and were all studying in Chengdu. Their train came before ours and again we sat and waited before we finally boarded our train, which had been delayed by 30 minutes.