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| Sign on the high-speed train |
6:10am came quickly but for a brief moment in the wee hours
of the morning, China was actually quiet. It was a taxi to the Metro and the
Metro to the high-speed rail station for a five-hour journey from Nanjing to
Changsha in Hunan province, traveling an average of 250km/h and over 300km/h
for the last hour!
Things of note:
Costa Coffee at the high-speed rail station in Nanjing has the most excellent muffins
ever!
Development is going on all over China. Communities of Hong
Kong tall buildings (40+ floors) are being built everywhere. I
wonder who is going to fill all of these apartments? I was blown away by the
development.
KFC and McDonalds are everywhere and I ate at KFC for the first time in many, many, many years. Unfortunately,
the pickings were extremely thin at the high-speed rail station in Changsha.
KFC seemed the lesser of the two evils. We ordered four pieces of chicken and two orders of fries
only to be told one piece of chicken per person. What? We were starving but
made it work as we were scheduled on a four-hour bus ride that was leaving
shortly.
People were still unashamedly staring and again, I had yet
to see another foreigner. Little kids would run up out of nowhere, stop dead in
front of you and stare with mouth gaping open.
What should have been a four-hour bus ride turned into seven
hours due to a vast part of the highway being closed. Bonus: passed through
many rural towns of China. Not so lucky in the fact that the bus driver didn't
stop once for the first five hours of the trip. Note: there was no bathroom on the
bus. Thankfully I hadn't had much to eat or drink that day, although I can't
say the same for my travel partner who drank a big tea before getting on the
bus.
Food stall #2 was a pit stop along the highway. I ordered another one
of those pita things from yesterday. Not freshly made and only
5RMB/24NT/CAN$0.89. It wasn't nearly as yummy but considering we were on the
side of the highway and I had barely eaten all day, it wasn't bad.
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| Hotel room in Zhangjiajie |
It was after 9pm by the time we got to our hotel. The owner walked over to the bus station to pick us up. He and his wife were
extremely helpful throughout our stay.
The name of the hotel was Yi Jia Qin Hotel and it was 64RMB/311NT/CAN$11.35 per
bed/night. Our room had two single beds with our own bathroom.
After 14.5 hours of travel from door to door, I was exhausted. The
next morning called for another early start to beat the crowds waiting to take
the gondola up to Tianmen Mountain. It was early to bed after an evening beer!
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