And I'm Off! From Zhuzhou to Changsha to Guiyang

Thursday, January 1. I'm off on the first leg of my journey entitled: Three Weeks, Three Provinces. I will see a lot of Southwestern China, specifically Guizhou, Yunnan and Guangxi Provinces.

Today, I'm flying to Guiyang, the capital of Guizhou Province. My flight was originally scheduled to leave Changsha at about 2:00 p.m., but that flight was cancelled, so I'm on another flight leaving at 5:00 p.m.

[Aside: Many weeks later, when D&T and I have returned from our respective trips, we compare notes and find that we both experienced cancelled flights on a couple of occasions. They relate a tale of a fellow traveller, a Chinese man, who told them that cancelled flights in China are common and who joked that the acronym CAAC (Civil Aviation Administration of China) really stands for “China Airlines Always Cancel.”]

The change in my flight time actually works out well because it means I can take a later bus from Zhuzhou to Changsha airport. Originally, I would have had to take the 10 a.m. bus which would have gotten me to the airport well before my 2 p.m. flight. But now I can take the 1 p.m. bus, which will still get me there early, but means that I have a little leeway in the morning. [Note: there are only 3 buses a day from ZZ to the airport: at 10, 1, and 4. Ditto on the return trip.]

So I'm able to have a more relaxed morning than I would otherwise have had. And David and Tiffany graciously offer to come to the bus ticket office with me. So we take the taxi downtown, negotiate the purchase of my ticket, D&T leave, and I settle down to wait for the bus that is supposed to leave from just outside the door. Right? Wrong. A number of other people are also waiting for the bus and, at some unknown signal (unknown to me anyway), they all stand up and hurry down the stairs. So I put my book away, gather up my things and follow them. But by the time I have negotiated my luggage down the stairs, everyone has faded into the crowd. And there's no bus outside. I look up and down the street, and there is a bus about half a block away. Of course, I can't read the sign on the bus, but I hope (pray) this must be it and hustle down the street. I show the driver my ticket and he nods his head so I figure I'm in the right place. I stow my little suitcase under the bus and hop on.

The drive to the airport is uneventful, and we arrive in almost exactly one hour. This is the first time I have been in the main terminal of the Changsha airport, and it is quite nice. (When we arrived in Changsha last July, we went through the much smaller international terminal because our flight was coming from the US via HongKong, and we had to go through customs.) After a little confusion, I find the right place to check-in; I check my bag and head off to the gate, where I spend the next three hours alternately reading my book and listening to the announcements, in both Chinese and English.

Finally, shortly before 5 (our scheduled departure time), I see my flight number on the electronic board above the gate so go out to get on the bus that takes us to the plane. No long drawn-out boarding process here; we are hustled onto the plane and take off at 5: 10 as the sun is setting in the west, where we are headed. It's a small-ish plane, but the flight is quick and easy. For most of the flight, we are above the clouds, which look like a big fluffy cloud blanket (or some endless Arctic expanse). We land in Guiyang only a little later than scheduled (it is about 6:30 p.m.), and I am met by a smiling young man who says, "you can call me Jason." His English is amazingly good - I wouldn't hesitate to say that he is fluent - and better than some of the English teachers at my school. To be fair, however, he probably has more opportunity to converse with English-speaking people on a regular basis.

We walk out to the car, and he introduces me to the driver, Mr. Xiong. (Later, I find out that Mr. Xiong is a long-time employee of CITS and one of the most senior people in the local office - and he's my driver! But more on that later.)

We stop for dinner at a restaurant not too far from the airport, where I have yet another in a long string of fabulous eggplant dishes since coming to China. The Chinese really know how to cook eggplant. This one has the eggplant sliced into rounds, stuffed with pork, breaded and then deep fried. Not heart healthy, but delicious. Along with that, we have tofu, soup with pork and radish, and the ever-present greens (no Chinese meal would be complete without that).

The drive to Anshun, in the Western part of Guizhou Province, takes about 1.5 hours. It's dark so I can't see much but, as we drive past Guiyang, there appear to be some interesting tall buildings. I hope I'll have a chance to see them in the daytime. Often, however, modern buildings in China look better at night, creatively decorated or outlined in neon lights, than they do in the day.

At 9:30 p.m. we arrive at the Grand Waterfall Hotel on the outskirts of Anshun. There is a huge Christmas tree in the lobby and other Christmas decorations abound. After check-in (which Jason handles), we talk about the plan for tomorrow. I'm giving up an excursion to Long Dong Cave in favor of seeing a Bouyi village and a little of Anshun in the morning. (Excuse me for saying this, but if you've seen one cave, you've seen them all - and I've seen plenty! Are Chinese stalactites any different than American ones? I doubt it.)

The hotel is quite nice, although I have a little trouble figuring out how to operate the lights in my room. Finally, I see that the controls are all located in a panel in the table next to the bed. It's too bad I won't be here long enough to enjoy this place. It's too late to unpack my laptop and set it up. That will have to wait for another day. And so to sleep.