Fuddland

We only stayed in the capital of the province of Anhui for one night, so I can’t really comment in great detail on what it has to offer, but it was immediately apparent that the city was a lot less affluent than Suzhou. As opposed to the beggars that are rife throughout Suzhou, in Hefei we saw homelessness in the sense of people sleeping rough, at bus stops and in shop doorways. I can’t think of a time when I’ve seen anyone actually sleeping on the street in Suzhou. Perhaps there’s a shelter somewhere that I’m not aware of.

[Aside: the previous statement notwithstanding, people nap anywhere and everywhere in China. They think nothing of lying down and catching forty winks on a public bench, on the ground outside the restaurant where they work, or using their hardhat as a pillow on a construction site.]

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Arriving in the late evening, our first goal was to try and secure a couple of tickets to Jiuhua Shan, preferably leaving there and then. I’d read somewhere that we had to take a bus there, and having arrived in Hefei by train, we took a taxi straight to the bus station. Unfortunately, and unbeknownst to us until the taxi driver pressed us for more detail, Hefei has more than one bus station, and we didn’t know which one we wanted, so we were taken to the nearest one, in the north of the city. The place was deserted—only one window remained open—so our hopes of catching an overnight bus were dashed, as were all attempts to get a ticket anywhere out of Hefei that night.

The entire time we were trying to buy tickets, we were being constantly harassed by a woman who runs a hostel across from the bus station, whom we studiously ignored until we’d exhausted all ticket-buying options. Eventually we turned our attention to her and made some enquiries; the rates were very reasonable [we could have haggled the price down some more, but it was so cheap we didn’t even bother], and the only other hotel we’d seen so far was a place proudly advertising rates by the hour, so we found ourselves checked into a basic but clean room with free tea and snooker from Sheffield on the telly.

Paying in advance, we asked for a receipt and got terribly confused when the woman asked us what price she should write on it: the answer of, “Er, the amount we just gave you,” was apparently not as obvious as we thought, and she checked a few times if we were sure she shouldn’t write a larger amount on it. I wonder, is it common practise for proprietors to help people with expenses fraud by dishing out false receipts?

Tired, hungry and too late to do any extensive exploring, we walked around the local area and soon found a bustling street-food street. We snacked on a couple of sticks of pineapple whilst we took our time deciding where to dine, eventually settling on a tasty fried-rice stall: one large plate cost three yuan, and one of the people working there was very curious as to how much a similar dish would cost in America. When we told her it’d probably be the equivalent of thirty to forty yuan, she looked very pleased with how cheap her homeland is.

After a good night’s sleep and the last of our food from Taizhou for breakfast, we went back to the bus station to try once more for tickets to Jiuhua Shan. This time we were told, rather more helpfully, that we couldn’t actually buy tickets to there from this bus station, and that we should get a bus from the train station. We took their word for it and jumped in a taxi, asked around and sure enough, were told that we just had to get on the #1 public bus. Or so we thought.

Quickly grabbing our belongings from the hostel, we climbed aboard and settled down, having been told it takes about three hours to get to Jiuhua Shan. So we were more than a little confused when, about half an hour later, the bus terminated whilst still in Hefei. We decided to use the tried-and-tested technique of looking rather lost, and almost immediately three young students came over and asked where we wanted to go. “Oh,” they said, “there’s a bus station near here, that’s probably where you need to go.”

Yes, it probably was. Luckily they were going there too, so we all walked and chatted together. They made sure we got the right tickets, took us to the right waiting area, and told the attendant to make sure we got on the right bus. [Some people really are very nice indeed.] A short while later, we were aboard a fairly rickety bus with no air conditioning, definitely, no-doubt-about-it, bound for Jiuhua Shan.

#1

srh | 2007 / 06 / 03 – 00:42

So we have to wait for part III to find out if you actually got there or not??

#2

David | 2007 / 06 / 03 – 01:57

Re #1: Yup, and whose time-between-third-installments model do I follow? Peter Jackson’s? George Lucas’s? Or Francis Ford Coppala’s? ;)

#3

Thanatos | 2007 / 06 / 04 – 09:23

If you follow George Lucas’ model we could all be waiting thirty years for the conclusion of this saga. And even then, there’s a good chance the pudding would be over-egged.

My vote goes to Peter Jackson.

#4

David | 2007 / 06 / 04 – 12:26

Re #3: In fact I shall follow the Microsoft model and announce that, whilst I intend to release the conclusion before the end of this week, it will probably only go public when I’m good and ready. ;)

#5

Thanatos | 2007 / 06 / 04 – 23:19

I guess it’s useless to point out that changing the parameters of the discussion halfway through is hardly fair. Who ever mentioned Microsoft?

#6

David | 2007 / 06 / 05 – 09:04

Re #5: Me, I mentioned them, just now. ;)

#7

Mike | 2007 / 06 / 05 – 15:55

Hefei is quite a good place to live, I’ve been here 3 years now and intend to be here longer.

The beggars here are diabolical, many are professional. On a few occassions I’ve spotted a throng of older well dressed women giving instruction to other older ragtag and young students.

The ones I despise most are the monkey men, the men who walk around with a monkey on a leash.

You will notice that all the monkeys have a limb missing because the trap them and leave them trapped till they go back to check. Often the monkeys virtually chew at their trapped limb and twist and writh trying to escape.

Everytime I see them, I want to perform a violent act on the monkeyman.

#8

David | 2007 / 06 / 05 – 17:32

Re #7: Thanks for the input, Mike. I saw the same sort of thing when I lived in Benxi—crowds of people around three incredibly thin, dirty monkeys, with chains around their necks and their hands bound behind their backs, performing “tricks”. As you say, despicable.

#9

Thanatos | 2007 / 06 / 05 – 22:13

Re: Nos 6,7,8: And now you’ve introduced your alter ego, Mike, into the conversation, to further ensnare a poor man’s cognitive processes.

Shame on you, Hunt, shame!

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