The hostel is not great and what sounded like trolleys full of scrap metal being dragged over rumble strips outside our window at 5am was a little treat. We slept in – only getting moving around 9. It was raining a little and I had to drag V out to see the only site that I thought was worth seeing – ‘The Golden Crane Tower’. After a long walk through the muggy (think average temp here is in the high 30’s) and wet streets (no fun here because puddles generally contain more living organisms than what you would find in a septic tank) we arrived at the tower and an entry fee that we thought would not be worth it. Good thing too as V found out later that the tower was rebuilt in the 80’s and now has an elevator – how authentic !

Back at the hostel we relaxed the afternoon away browsing online and making calls in preparation for our 12 hour long overnight bus ride to Shanghai – John was supposed to arrange a sleeper train for us but apparently no tickets were available.

The bus station did not instill any confidence in our travel plans. It looked like complete chaos and again incessantly loud. We attempted to go through the boarding gates a few times but were chased back. Being the only westeners around we got a lot of attention and a few people offered assistance, which was great, but none of it was conclusive. Eventually (an hour late) we were ushered to a waiting old bus. It was a sleeper bus (ie: more or less flat bunks 2 high, 3 wide and ~10 deep) but very cramped, old and grotty – after some confusion about our bunk numbers we settled in. V had a bottom bunk – I was a row back on the top.

Each bunk had it own ‘features and benefits’; Both were Asian standard length (too short) and as soon as the bus was packed to capacity we pulled out of the station and promptly stopped to gather more ‘unofficial’ passengers. V ended up sleeping shoulder to shoulder with a guy who filled one of the gaps on the floor. My bunk was a delight – broken air vents meant I had cold hurricane force wind on my face combined later with dripping water as the bus started to leak. The saftey rail was missing – rolling over would result in a nasty fall so I slept with one hand jammed in a convient gap. The bunk itself was also not firmly attached to the framework – fun. To top it all off I could not believe it when people started smoking in a bus with no windows ! It was a very long night.

[Pictures: The view from my bunk – yip it was a slow day !]

– Posted from my iPhone via Wifi