vancestevens

Zhongshan to Hong Kong

All day in Liuzhou and all that night, it poured rain. I was on a bus all night, from 7 p.m. till noon the next day. The bus developed problems two hours down the road and pulled in to a town for repairs. The hostess on the bus spoke a little English. 15 min into our stop she said to me, "The bus is broken. We will have to mend it. Can you wait a moment please." Then she thought better of the truth value of what she had just said, so she corrected herself, and guilelessly now, said, "Can you wait a LONG TIME." It didn’t seem funny at the time but it does in retrospect. An hour later we were pulling away, tyre mended. The town was flooding. People were sandbagging their stores, and others dealing with floods soaking merchandise. If it kept raining, there would be more damage. The bus rolled on. Futher down the road, about 3 in the morning, there was another pit stop involving some welding. The bus reached Zhongshan after noon next day, almost 6 hours late.
Emmie was expecting me in Zhongshan, but on the bus I had asked the friendly hostess if there was a phone I could borrow. She got me the driver’s phone and helped me place the call to alert Emmie to my late arrival.
I used Zhongshan as a staging post to make the move over to Hong Kong to wend my way back to Abu Dhabi and on to Tunisia. I'm writing this now at Hong Kong airport while waiting for the Gulf Air desk to open. If you bought coffee at one of the coffee places in the departure lounge, they let you use the Internet for free (but the coffee was $20 HK dollars! (At least it was good coffee)
I arrived in Hong Kong by ferry from Zhongshan where i spent a pleasant time with Emmie and her cheeky monkey daughter Moli. Emmie took me around on her motorbike, but when Moli joined us she got me a bicycle that was too small and whose handlebars and seat flipped and flopped when I tried to ride it. This forced me to give it up and jog along behind Moli's bike when we went out. On excursions to the sports complex for ping pong on tables wet from rain squalls, and to the Hawaii indoor pool spa (swimming laps, jogging treadmill), Emmie saw that I didn't lack enjoyable exercise. She also navigated the restaurant menus for me.
My entire time in China, I only had to order one point and gesture meal. Menus in Yangsuo were in English, but other than that, I always had amicable and attractive guides provided from among Yaodong's students, and he managed my trip so well that I suggested he open a travel service. Actually I have a couple of ideas for doing business in China. A luxury bus service that provides headphones so the steady stream of music and violent video is optional, and secondly, an ever-expanding chain of expresso coffee bars to first get Chinese addicted to great coffee and then to tap the huge market. Emmie argues that my scheme will never work because Chinese don't drink coffee and (she thinks) probably wouldn't, but (I say) look at McDonald's.
Anyway, my China mainland adventure has come to an end and my Hong Kong adventure is hopefully going to be TRANSITory as I expect to have a boarding card for Abu Dhabi shortly. Speaking of which WHAT TIME IS IT? egad I'd better get over there.
THANKS to all my CHINA friends for making my trip to your country my best ever.
You can link here to my ongoing travels in Tunisia http://vance2004tunisia.blogspot.com