Tuesday 4 December 2007

Day 30 - November 3rd

Late wake up again! Woken by Pierre, French guy who’s living at the apartment at the mo, losing his phone. He must have dropped it in the taxi when he was returning from the office (on a Saturday!). Pretty annoying, as the person called my phone back, but when I tried to talk to them, they didn’t answer. Stolen! Decide to get my shit together and go down to Pizza Hut for lunch! I eat 4 of the 6 pieces of my pizza and save the other two pieces for later! I’ve turned into such an old man! Haha!

I bid Eamonn farewell, even though he says he will meet me tomorrow in Hangzhou. I face the metro system with all my luggage. Pretty hard work! I get to the train station after an hour and go get a ticket. The Lonely Planet suggests it will cost Y40, I get a ticket for Y24. I notice later that I have got the slow train! Everyone seems to be looking at me. Just staring! The train stewards here are sooo anal! He had to make sure all my straps from my backpack were tucked into the over head shelf which took a good few minutes! So anal for something which is perfectly safe! I suppose he was trying to make his train look neater or something? He seemed to have missed the fact that the trains are just DIRTY! The Tannoys start blaring out Backstreet Boys. I decide it’s time to listen to my iPod!

After 2 hours, I arrive at Hangzhou. Whilst leaving, I talk to people and they warn me that I shouldn’t tell people I am from Hong Kong! So what should I tell them? I come from England? Rip me off even more? The taxi ride is crazy! We get to a traffic jam, where people are getting out of their cars and yelling at the police! Apparently, there is a fireworks display today and all the roads are closed! The taxi driver stops and tells me to get out and walk the rest of the way to my hostel. Its just a few 100 metres down the off ramp of the highway. Okay… so I get out and walk.

Turns out my hostel wasn’t ‘just’ down the road. Its miles away! I call the hostel and the original one I wanted was fully booked anyway… first time I’ve had trouble with bookings! Then the second one I choose say I should get a taxi to get there. So I wait for a taxi… and wait… and wait. A good half hour passes so I decide maybe I should move and try to find a better place. I walk pass many massage parlours with red lights… hmm. When I say lots, I mean a whole bloody block! Maybe this ain't the best place to hang out! After an hour, I give up getting in a taxi (after several actually don’t let me in!) and decide the best course of action would be to go to an Internet café and chill for a bit until the traffic is better (this is at about 10pm).

After an hour, I still can’t seem to get a taxi. So I call up the hostel and ask them which direction I would have to walk. Better to walk half way and find a cab then sit around with nothing! On my walk, I get people laugh at me “so you can’t get a cab?”. I finally get a cab after walking a good 4 blocks. “Why do you want to go to that youth hostel? There’s one just around the corner…” I decide that I started walking to this hostel, by god am I gonna get there!

I arrive (3 hours after getting off the train!) and check in. I am greeted by a Chinese lady who was from the states who can talk Cantonese. We talk in 3 different languages! She seems nice enough, but then after a few hours, she leaves with some other people to go to Yellow Mountain.

I see a mouse run out of my room! I eat my 2 remaining slices of pizza!

Miles walked: 195.750m

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