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Welcome to our blog. During the coming year we travel (backpack) around the world and will try to regularly post some updates on our whereabouts on this page.

Freitag, 29. Oktober 2010

18 Hours "in Prison"

In China it seems long distance trains can be booked 5 days in advance, and that is the time to run to the train station. We realized that the day before we wanted to take an 18 hours train trip to Shenzhen... and with a list of questions, translated in Chinese, we tried to get tickets anyway.


Forget it... no way... all was sold out, soft beds, hard beds, even hard chairs! The last week of the Shanghai Expo starts and some other fairs are going on. We tried the close by Hong Kong and Guangzhou, but same story here.

As it was time for us to move on, we went to the bus station... and got tickets on the sleeper bus.

The only info we had was where the bus leaves and at what time. We had no idea what to expect.

I write this text in the bus... we ‘survived’ the night - we assume we arrive in approx 1.5 hours, but up to now, it is a great mystery...

Nobody, that means 30 passengers and the drivers speak English, at least that is what they say. On a bus between 2 mega cities. How strange is that!

For those who are interested in it, here is a short run down of our sleeper bus experience:

We loaded our bags in the direct bus to Shenzhen.

We queued to get into the bus, it seemed to go slow, people started to take the offered plastic bags. We figured that was for those we need to throw up... luckily that was not the case. Everyone had to take their shoes off and put them in a bag. Good thinking, too bad that was the only thing they thought about...

The beds are approx 60 cm wide and not more than 170 cm long. We had our small daypacks with us.. very bad  those and the bags with the shoes and our food bag had to be placed on our beds too.

There are 3 rows of beds, 2 high, 5 in a row with a tiny path between the beds. We had 2 top beds and one bottom bed. On the bottom bed we could not even sit, as it was so low.

Luckily enough we brought our food and drinks bag, we drove and drove and only after 5 hours the bus stopped for dinner. It was just passed 7 pm. Dinner is a big word, we stopped at a small convenience store, we bought a noodle soup as the show supplied how water, and once back in the bus we ate our food we got from the market that morning.

The dinner stop was a toilet stop at the same time. The toilet in the bus is a disaster, but the ‘let us call them toilets’ at the stop were nothing more than what cows have in Europe... even no doors. Great choice for a stop!

Na ja, in the mean time it was dark and the lights in the bus don’t work, at least not on the bottom beds. The bus stopped again and I tried to go out, but was ‘told’ in some aggressive sign language to get straight back in. So standing in the bus, at the door opening, I brushed my teeth and spit the toothpaste on the ground (outside). The bus left again and has not stopped since, except for getting fuel.

The night passed unexpectedly well. These 30 other passengers, being all Chinese don’t spit and don’t make horrible noises with their throat. It seems they all took heavy sleeping pills as most are sleeping since we got into the bus. Some others are fiddling with their mobile phones. Those calling scream in their phones iso talking normal...

There is one small kid on the bus, but even he does not make any noise. Am wondering who all these people are, where they go, what they do on this bus...

So now it is morning an my colleague Jeff has just spoken with a lady on the bus to find out when the bus arrives, being 1 p.m. ... iso 8 a.m. as we thought it would be.

5 more hours than expected.


It is hot, there is no more fresh air, the ‘airco’ only works more or less. There were still no further stops, just a few minutes here and there to let people out of the bus. The toilet smells like hell. And believe it or not, one of the 3 staff started smoking and none of the passengers said anything about it.

So I did, and the cigarette was put out immediately. Crazy there are!

We lie around and wait, to arrive... Brain on zero!

A one-time experience, never again 

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