On Friday night we took a train to Nanjing, got some "Mexican" food (Bailey's burrito was filled with only vegetables?! The salsa was spaghetti sauce, and there were no beans nor rice in sight. Still a nice break from traditional Chinese food). We went to our Airbnb which was an apartment building, and set up with the receptionist a 4am pickup time with a taxi. Or so we thought.
4am came by too soon, and we were greeted with a knock on the door from the receptionist and a driver. We step in the hallway and they immediately ask for the 300 kuai payment. We were like "no way", because obviously you shouldn't pay until you get to the destination right? We get out to the parking lot and are taken to just a normal car - obviously not a taxi. With Google translate we found out that this was a "company car" but they couldn't produce any authorization or verification or whatever. I wasn't comfortable with that, and neither was anyone else so we just walked away. Sketchy! I mean, we probably would have been fine, but at least with a taxi we'd be covered with insurance. Oh and also, the taxi we were able to hail only charged us 200 kaui. We are pretty sure the receptionist just called a friend and was like, "hey, want to make 300 kuai tonight?!"
So we make it to the airport and saw that the flight was delayed a little. Which was fine. Oh but then it is departure time and the plane hasn't even shown up!
An hour an 30 minutes later than the original departure time, we knew that if the plane was any later, we would miss our connecting train ride. We were so relieved when the plane came - sure that we would make it to our train at the last minute.
And we would have... but when the plane got to Changsha, the pilot decided it would be fun or something to circle around the airport for FORTY MINUTES. The guy next to Shey and I spoke English and told us that this pretty much always happens, and that getting connecting trains and flights is not a good idea. From now on we will just spend the extra money and fly straight to our destination!
So we land and head to the train station to see if we could switch our train tickets, since ours had already left. We show our taxi driver our tickets, which have the train station address on them. But.... he ends up taking us to the long distance BUS STATION and we don't even notice until we are inside talking to an employee (bus stations and train stations look a lot alike.)
Maybe we were just supposed to be there or something. Because at that point we looked at our phones only to discover that the next train for Zhangjiajie would be at 5:30, standing tickets only. But while we were at the bus station we figured we'd check prices for a bus to our destination. A bus ticket would be about $6 more expensive per ticket, but we would have seats, and it left in just a half hour!
So, aboard the bus we went. They said it would be about a 6 hour drive but 8 hours later we just wanted to scream and die and punch everyone because we had not made it to Zhangjiajie. I'm telling you, 8 hours on a hot, muggy, squishy bus that smelled like Chinese snacks (all sorts of packaged meats), listening to people YELLING on their phones, can be a little much. We were all feeling frustrated and impatient, but kept in good enough spirits. Traveling with friends is a good thing. If it was just Bailey and I, I probably would have cried a lot.
Finally we made it! To the city at least. Our Airbnb was still about 45 minutes away. Of course, our bad luck wasn't about to run out! I had the address for the Airbnb but there must have been something wrong with it because every single taxi driver we showed it to turned us down. We considered getting a hostel for the night in the city, but then a cute mom that we befriended on the bus saved the day! With her limited English, she helped us look at maps, call the host, and talk to a driver. Soon enough we were in a taxi with a hilarious guy who kept wanting to arm wrestle Dillon. You know, WHILE he was driving!
11:30pm - we made it to our quiet Airbnb in the suburbs. We were so happy to finally be able to rest, having been traveling since 4 in the morning!
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