I had to get onto a bus from HuaiHua to YoTing, there was no train from HauiHua to ZhangJiaJie till the next morning at 5am. I went for the bus. The bus smelled like old socks, pickled turnips, and well, it was just gross. There was bus trouble and the drivers spent 50 minutes fixing the bus before take off. Everyone on the bus was upset at the delay. Then the ticket collector decided to yell at the bus driver as if they were lazy. As if somehow yelling is going to fix the bus. It was terrible. This yelling was also to set things straight so that all the disgruntle guests would shut their mouth and know who was in charge, the one with the loudest yell. It worked, everyone sat down quietly like students in a classroom with a mean teacher. What this did for the drivers was it made them nervous, upset, and disturbed. What did this do for the driving, it was rough and I felt like throwing up.
An older man squeezed next to me when he already had another seat. I didn't care for this especially when he pretended to be sound asleep as if in REM sleep and kept sliding down and then over to me leaning on me. I finally had to push him and tell him to move over to his side. He behaved after that.
I met a man on the bus, he's a middle aged man who was also going to Zhangjiajie. I suggested we figure out how to go to Zhangjiajie from YoTing. He said if there was no bus or train then he can contact people who will pick him up and drop him off. I invited myself to his ride and he did lend a hand and allow me to join him because there was no bus or train till the next morning to ZhangJiaJie. We had just missed the last by half an hour that was lost with all the bus maintenance, yelling, and then picking more riders to fill up the bus to make extra cash, we had a delay of 90 minutes.
This man named Shu turns out to be an air force official who is now a politician. It was very late at night already and he had lots of connections he decided to pull to get us escorted privately to ZhangJiaJie. The people who picked us up were the city officials, major kind of person of YoTing. His son got into college with Shu's help. And now Shu is helping the son's girlfriend find a better job. They were both graduates of the same class. The same class has a plan for reunion in 2008 and take 7 months off and travel all over China. They plan to remodel cars so the back seat takes luggage and sleeper and rides 3 people. He invited me to join them in 2008 after the Olympics in Beijing. They have to wait till 2008 because there are some friends who are not due for retirement yet. They've got 20+ cars committed and scheduled to depart that year and got the Japanese car Honda maker to get involved in this project to supply cars for a very low price.
Shu also helped me check into a hotel that normally costs 240 yuan and had me only pay 60 yuan because it was owned by his friend. I had the whole room to myself. It was great except it was across from the night market and the night market was active on a weekday even till 2am. I had only 3 hours of sleep. Shu said he'd pick me up in the morning and help me get into the park.
