We woke up to the rain pouring outside. Is this the day to go we thought? We believed it would lift eventually and set out in a torrential, but warm, downpour. Sarah was pulling luggage out the back of the cab in 2 foot-deep gullies only to find out they didn't have tickets for the train they said they would. Only the one the next hour. So we waitied in the dimly-lit station and even saw a man with a tumor hanging from his face that was half the size of his face. Wondered what the health insurace situation there was in the town.
When we boarded and left on our bus, it was a doozy. Rice Paddy levels stretching for miles above with a raging river below, we traveled for 4 hours, had lunch, and then it seemed the bus driver was starting to doze off. He almost hit a Semi on a mountain pass, then Andy gave him some candy in hopes that he might perk himself up. He also lit a cigarette which we think helped. Then, it seemed like there was one spectacular mountain and valley of rice paddy and village after another. A funny thing was that the older lady that had feigned being too elderly in the beginning, now not only wanted to drink out of Sarah's water bottle to take a pill (which Sarah refused and she got it from the girl in front of her). Resigned, she sat quitely munching on sunflower seeds and spitting the hulls directly into the aisles. A classy gesture but one which would win her no points.
We arrived in Conjiang. Found our hotel, and Andy checked out a local high school nearby whose students were still out playing soccer and basketball on their court. They invited Andy to join, but having no shoes but sandals, had to play barefoot, as many of the others were as were as well. The first quick, agile team beat his 3-on-3 team handily but the next ones got a routing as Andy passed to his quicker Chinese counterparts and even did a layup himself, which prompted a spontaneous burst of applause from sideline students because of the height he got. Yet, in reality it was just a normal layup and perhaps he was just taller than everyone else. Everyone shook hands afterwards and invited Andy to dinner, but we were exhausted and just wanted to crash at the hotel. Perhaps the most ironic thing was that the guy that invited him to play was wearing a Memphis Grizzlies jersey, and, when pressed, Andy found out that few of the Chinese felt any allegiance to Yao at all.
The next day, we took a bus to a little town, from where we hiked two hours with full packs along the road to our next destination along the border. We spent a day there, saw the indiginous indigo-dying tribes, mountains of rice paddies and saw how they harvested the rice in a simple gasoline powered thresher.
Up at 7 am the next morning, we left with a group of Chinese Art Students from Tianjin University -- where we stayed in Tianjin -- and took the 8 hour journey to Sanjiang. It didn't disappoint. Spectacular rice terraces seeming to stretch to heaven and the occasional scary washed out road. At one point, the attendant on the bus had to get out and place rocks on the shouler to ensure the bus didn't fall over the cliff!
A couple of towns later and we were in Cheng Yang Bridge just outside Sanjiang. But our mistake of not eating would catch up with us. Unlike the rest of China, there were no places to eat throughout the entire series of villages. Nothing except little village stores with stale chips. Everyone seemed to cook for themselves. Starving, we finally found a place with food, 10 hours later and pretty much gorged ourselves for the night.
The next morning we were up and at 'em at 7 taking a minibus to Sanjiang. Not making the same mistake the day before, Andy got three bowls of noodles at a nearby stand before the next bus was supposed to leave. The attendant woman actually found him and said he had to get on the bus (Sarah was already on it). Willing to risk the bus leaving and taking the next one at least with noodles in hand, he asked the woman to hurry the noodle person up and carry the rest to the bus, which she easily obliged. Apparently, the all important thing is to GET ON THE BUS.
We left for Nanning stopping in a way station where we had to change buses and buy tickets. Andy's broken Chinese allowed for the purchase of the tickets but not in time for the next departing bus. In the mass confusion, he was pushing in with the rest of the Chinese and never really knew what the grand total of the tickets was (He knew the first half of the number but not the last -- but enough to know that he got too little change from the attendant) -- and when he pressed back on her, got a sheepish delivery of more change from her (much to the approval of all the other Chinese in the line who had seen the whole thing and supported Andy wholeheartedly). We missed the bus we wanted but had no idea the next bus left in only five minutes. And since we were the first ones on the next bus to buy tickets, somehow she had given us seats #1 and 2, the best ones right behind the driver.
Made it comfortably to Nanning by 4pm, took the bus to the train station (as aided by an Israeli traveler who had the scoop), found a hotel, secured a hard-seat train ticket (relatively easily amazingly enough - the line was only 4 people deep as compared to 200 in X'ian) to the border, Piaxing, had dinner, got our first seductive taste of jackfruit and called Sprint to revise Andy's vacation plan to keep his mobile number.
In the morning, we boarded the 8am hard-seat (our first of the trip) and proceeded screaming through the limestone karsts all the way to the Vietnam border.