Liuzhou
Trip Start
Nov 19, 2006
1
5
17
Trip End
Dec 06, 2006
Liuzhou, China
Friday, November 24, 2006
We headed out to the bus station at about 8am and I wasn't looking forward to the two bus journeys that it was going to take to get us from Ning Ming to Nanning and then on to Liuzhou. Each leg is about 400km so we had a lot of ground to cover. In the past I'd travelled on local buses and it had involved packing 80 people into a bus designed for 40. No air-con, and sometimes livestock travelling on the bus as well.
But I was pleasantly surprised when we caught our first bus. Comfy seats, plenty of leg room and seats were allocated so it was one passenger one seat. Once we got out of Ning Ming to thing that struck me is how new and how empty the roads are. Hardly a car in sight. Also for the whole length of the motorway the central reservation has been landscaped. Perfectly tended bushes and flowers, with hundreds of women dotted around keeping them tidy.
After 4 hours or so we reached Nanning and had lunch in a KFC style place at the bus station. It was so good, made a great change to all the Asian food we've been having.
After lunch we boarded another bus for another 4 hour journey to Liuzhou, and this bus was 5 star. Instead of the usual two seats either side of the aisle, there were 2 on one side and 1 on the other and each car was like an armchair. Truly luxurious. More prefect empty roads and the journey flew by. I assume the road system is quite new but must've costs millions to develop. The landscape is quite like a land version of Halong Bay. Lots of limestone hills and columns. The road has been cut straight through them. Lots of cutting and the odd tunnel to keep the road as straight as possible.
We reached Liuzhou at about 5pm. First thing we noticed when we got out of the bus was how much colder it was. We crossed the Tropic of Cancer today, but it feels like we crossed into the Arctic Circle. The fleece that I've been carrying for the last month finally got its first outing.
China has a very different feel to the other countries we've visited so far. First up it looks a lot much westernised. The concrete and brick houses, a lot more glitzy advertising, more cars, less motorbikes. The attitude of the people seems much different too. Not so many smiles, in fact often no acknowledgement at all. Everyone seems to be doing their own thing oblivious to anyone around them. On the roads it's every man for himself, no filtering of traffic. Queuing seems alien to them. As for expecting thanks or even a smile if you hold a door open for someone, no chance. And no one speaks English at all. I guess it's not helped by the fact that they get no western TV at all.
So how do I find some food in a town where no one speaks English. The menu is in Mandarin and there are no pictures? Luckily Rob and I found the lady and her store as shown on the right. After her speaking some Mandarin and us smiling we decided to treat it like a Mongolian BBQ. We pointed out the beef and then some of the veggies, mushroom, peppers, onion, snap peas etc and left her to it. Sure enough see stir-fried it up for us. Marvellous. Plenty of lovely freshly cooked food and a couple of 660ml beers for 25 Yuan (£1.50).
In the evening we hit the 10 pin bowling alley which kept us and the locals amused for a few hours.
