24 hours of pure hell

We woke up and it was pouring rain…..should have been the first indicator that the day was going to be rough. Our last afternoon in Guangzhou was spent running between overhands and store canopies as we tried to catch the last few remaining monuments in town despite the monsoon-style rain. By 3pm, it was time to get a cab back to our hotel, then to the train station to board our overnight train to Guilin. Little did we know, trying to get a taxi at 3pm in the middle of a rainstorm is virtually impossible. After nearly an hour of frantically waving our arms in front of cabs that were already full, we FINALLY got a cab. We were just in time to the train station when - oh &*@% - we have no money for our tickets. Having no clue where we were in the city – Lee took off running like a bat outta hell trying to find the nearest ATM – which happened to be a death-trap motorcycle ride away. A triumphant but incredibly frustrated Lee returns, only to find that no tickets are left for the sleeper cars on the train. And so we embarked upon the worst 14-hours we’ve ever endured. Seats that were hard as a rock and straight up and down. Filthy, dirty men all around us – spitting on the floor (they’re all very phlegmmy here in China) , smoking like chimneys, etc. etc. Bathrooms that, well, we won’t even go into detail there. Each hour, the train would stop, about 100 new people would board our car, and food vendors would run down the aisles SCREAMING – literally – for people to buy food. FINALLY, after counting the grueling minutes all night long, we arrived in Guilin at 6:30 am. Tired and filthy, we found the first travel agent we saw and booked a hotel – just wanting a shower and a bed. No such luck. Our “lovely” room at the Ocean Hotel had cigarette butts in the shower, stained pillows, and so many mosquitoes that we had to set up our handy-dandy mosquito tent and “camp” in our very own room. After numerous breakdowns by both of us, we decided that we were being American snobs, and we could suck it up for one day in our hotel……

PICTURES OF GUANGZHAO

PICTURES OF GUILIN