Crappy New Year

We were woken about 4:45 on new years eve, gave up our room keys, lay there for a bit then got ready to leave the boat at 6. We made our way down to the lower deck just after 6 but no one else was around, so we asked a few of the girls there what time we would get off via phrasebook. I guess they didn't read Chinese to well because they just looked at us with no answer. After waiting and asking again we saw some people getting off from the 2nd level and sure enough everyone was there getting off. I would have thought that they could have directed us up a level but no we just stood there with our backpacks on, waiting.

Getting off the boat we had arranged for another tour to Zhangjiajie. A guy with our name on a sign met us and led us to a small van with the heater cranked. We waited about 20 minutes and he then led us to another van with no heater. We were driven to a hotel and taken to an upstairs office that was smoky and skanky. This seems to be a trend in hotels in China. They have fantastic looking lobbies, but as soon as you ascend the stairs or elevator you enter a whole different world. After some waiting we figured out we were to stay there for 5 hours until they would take us to the train station. We used our trusty phrasebook and finally got the message across that we wanted to go straight to the train station and wait there. We put our bags in storage at the train station and walked around Yichang for the morning to pass the time. We found some great street food here, steamed buns stuffed with spicy cabbage, egg crepes, and a naan/pita bread type thing. The only internet cafe we found to waste some time in was closed so we made our way back to the train station to wait for our train to Zhangjiajie. The trip was a 'real' hard seat carriage. Green vinyl bench seats (padded in 1973) with straight backs, smoky, trash on the floor which was actually swept up periodically, and an old school coal boiler to boil the drinkable water. The highlight of the train ride was near the end when an English teacher approached us and asked if some of his students could come and practice speaking to us. They were between 7 and 10 years old, mostly girls. They were on their way to an English speaking competition. Some were a bit shy and nervous but one girl was a chatterbox, they were very cute. It was great to be able to communicate with the kids to some degree. We created a bit of a crowd around us which was accentuated by the fact that for the last hour the carriage was overcrowded and people and luggage were lining the aisles.

Arriving in Zhangjiajie City we were rushed to a mini bus to take us to our hotel in what we think was Zhangjiajie Village. There were about 7 other people on the tour who were all travelling together plus our guide. No one but us spoke any English. The bus ride was about 1 hour long and over the bumpiest roads in China. Kel and I sat at the back of the bus with our backpacks which was a bad move as each bump was magnified and a few times we were launched in the air. The fact that we were both busting to go to the toilet didn't help either. Although the bus was a mini bus the guide used the microphone on full volume with maximum echo effect activated. He talked for the whole trip and at one point broke into song which was in Chinese but even we could tell was way out of tune. The hotel was in complete darkness when we arrived and as soon as we went in I headed to the toilet, I think, it may have been a wall in the hall as there were no lights. The hotel was freezing, literally. We could barely see where we were walking from our frosty breath in front of us. Our first room had a heater but didn't work because the outlet was burnt out and the cord didn't reach the other outlet. Our second room was identical but the heater worked, kind of. With the room now at a toasty -2 degrees C we counted down from 10 and wished each other a Happy New Year before trying to go to sleep. It was 10:20pm.
In our down sleeping bags and a few layers of clothes on we were still cold and could see our breath. We thought this might be a Chinese therapy for Kel's cold but alas it failed.

At 1 am the heater turned itself off.

Crappy New Year.