We set off to go buy our bus tickets to Guangzhou by jumping on the 808 local bus just down the road from the hostel. We always struggle with buses as they are never as simple as trains and metros to figure out. You never know which bus to take unless someone tells you, there is never a map at the stops or on the bus which tells you what route the bus takes and you are always in a constant state of confusion once on the bus trying to figure out when you need to get off.

Armed with Grace’s strict instructions to ignore all the people who tried to talk to us on the way to the entrance of the Southern long distance bus station we made it to through the usual chaos to the ticket windows. Sims turn to buy tickets, but he had the advantage this time of having everything we needed written down in Chinese (thanks Grace) so it was relatively easy. The 2:30 was sold out and the next bus only left at 5:30. Good thing we had gotten there early or we might of been staying an extra day in Hangzhou. With 6 hours to kill we jumped back on the 808 and managed to get most of the way to the silk museum.

The silk museum was free and we wandered around in relative peace and quiet, the crowds only arriving as we we leaving. After retrieving our back packs and taking care not to wake the slumbering guard who was supposed to be keeping an eye on them, we hopped back onto he 808. Stopped for some lunch then got back on the 808 to the bus station. Once you know where a particular bus actually goes you stick with it even if it means a bit of a walk to get to one of it’s stops.

The bus station was a marked improvement on the one in Wuhan. It wasn’t as big and seemed to have more staff. There was less yelling and a lot more seats. We still weren’t looking forward to 18 hours on a bus but we were crossing fingers that the bus would be in a better condition than the last one we took. It was! It was nice and clean and looked relatively new. The air con worked properly and nothing was broken. They even gave us tags when we put our bags in the hold, a good sign that these guys were jacked up (or that there were problems with stolen luggage). Plus we didn’t pick up any extra people to sleep in the aisles! A big chunk of our trepidation dissolved and we got down to the serious business of wishing the 18 hours would pass quickly.

[Pictures: The slumbering guard at the silk museum as V makes a get-away, Wuhan bus station – much more civilized – this guy had matching shirt and newspaper]

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