Day 13 – “You can’t get there from here.” Part II

Since I had prolonged my stay in Xingping, it was time for me to head out.  With Aga and Radek along, I took the direct bus to Guilin from Xingping.  (Where was this bus when I was trying to get to Xingping?)  Before we left, Norman gave us very specific instructions on how to get to our next destination.  He was adorable.  He told the bus driver to make sure we got off at the right stop and then wrote the next destination on a piece of paper in characters so that we didn’t have to try to get our meaning across.  Norman told us that we would have to walk about 1 km to get to the bus station.  (Oddly enough, Guilin has three bus stations–thankfully, Norman had written down the name of the bus station, so we could continue to show it to people and ask where it was). 

We finally found the bus station (it was about 1 pm) and got in line to buy bus tickets to Longsheng, my next destination, and the hub for people wanting to get to “Dragon’s Backbone Rice Terraces.”  We got to the window and the attendant insisted that we didn’t want to go to Longsheng and instead that we wanted to go to Heping.  Hmm… Well, I think I know where I want to go.  I kept saying I wanted to go to Longsheng.  He kept saying we wanted to go to Heping and continued to resist.  He still wouldn’t sell us the tickets to Longsheng. Who knows why…  Finally, we boarded a bus to Heping.  Maybe it was faster…who knows…

The ride to Heping was a bit terrifying.  We were driving through mountains on narrow switchbacks with drops off the edge.  The view was spectacular though! 🙂  Sadly, I took no pictures of this because I was hanging on for dear life.  When we got to the ‘pass’ the bus stopped at what can best be described as a very tiny ‘convenience store/truck stop’ thing.  I’m not sure, but I think we stopped to add water to the bus.  I don’t know what that means. Don’t ask.

We made it to Heping.  Heping is basically a street.  We weren’t actually sure how we were going to get to Dazhai (which was our final destination) from Heping.  There were some minibus drivers where the bus dropped us off, but they were charging an arm and a leg to get to Dazhai.  (We decided that if we had to use this as a last resort, we would.)  The man at the bus station in Guilin who would not sell us tickets to Longsheng insisted that there was a public bus that went directly to Dazhai.  This is where we waited for an hour for the public bus.  We still enjoyed our time waiting and continually telling the minibus men that we didn’t want their service.  They kept approaching us and asking if we wanted to go with them.  So, I offered them the same price as the public bus (7元) and then they left us alone. 🙂  Everything is about money. And if you are foreign and in China, it is assumed that you have money. 

The bus finally showed up but there were no seats.  This does not stop the driver from taking us though.  Remember that thing about maximizing profits?  If he didn’t take us he would be missing out on fares.  So, we were standing for the ride.  Now, we were still pretty high in the mountains and had to come down a ways to make it to Dazhai.  These roads were even narrower than the other roads…and I was standing…hmmm.  The view was once again wonderful but I was not enjoying the ride.  I was anxious to arrive and get off the bus.  We stopped once along the way to pay our “National Park Fee” (again 50元) so that we could enjoy the rice terraces. 

We made it to Dazhai.  There were many native women who were more than willing to carry my bags for me…for a price. 😉 I just kept saying “Wo men bu yao xie xie.” (我们不要谢谢–We don’t want, thanks.)  We had come this far on our own with our bags, what was another 30 minutes? 🙂 hehehe…..

I called the woman at the hostel to see if there was a quick way to get there. She told me to give my phone to someone to talk to her and then that person would lead us.  We did this and were then on our way.  The woman who was leading us was tiny. Seriously tiny. Except her legs. She had calves of steel.  Probably from climbing up and down the mountain multiple times throughout the day.  We were doing horribly.  I knew that the hostel was on a hill but I didn’t fully understand the magnitude of the hill.  Especially with a large travel backpack on my back and my day-pack on my front.  It as brutal.  The woman basically laughed at us the whole way up the hill.  It was a little humorous.  We were nearing the top (at least we thought) and decided to stop on a bridge for a bit to have a rest.

This is the tiny woman with the calves of steel.  I love her sweatshirt! Hilarious!  She kept asking to carry our bags.  Can you see why we kept saying no?  (She’s actually 20 years old! 😉 She just looks like she’s 65ish–hehe… We kept noticing that there were no school-age children in this village–only small children and adults/old people.) 

Finally we made it to the top (to Tiantouzhai) and after a bit of nonsense got checked into our rooms.  We then visited the ‘restaurant’ and enjoyed a lovely supper. 

I crashed that night after a really LONG day of trying to get to Tiantou village.  I think I fell asleep at around 9:30.  It was awesome.

See that building with the orange and red on it to the right? That was the guesthouse we stayed at. It was an awesome view from the room. 🙂