Spring Festival Break: Pt 14. Heading Home Again

Finally drawing to the end of my travels I found myself with a little time spare in Wuhan, capital of Hubei Province. I took a real liking to this place, despite only getting one day to look around. I didn't visit anywhere major, or see anything flash, but once I'd sorted out tickets for the next leg of my journey, James and I just explored and chilled in this cool city. We caught one of the ferry-boats which cross the wide Yangtze here to get over to the city centre and spent some time walking around. The architecture was really familiar to me and the whole place reminded me of home, the UK, which I guess is why I found it so appealing. It was a cool place to end my travels - or so I thought. I must say that I'd had a great time travelling over the past three weeks and really could have gone on quite happily. At the same time though, I was pretty keen to get back to my apartment and get settled again.

The next day I bid farewell to James, my travelling buddy of over two weeks, and got on a bus for Changsha and home. Like all these things, it wasn't going to be quite that simple. Some problems on the expressways meant we took small roads all the way and ended up arriving 2 hours later than I had expected. I then had to transfer from that bus station to the south bus station to catch my bus back home to Lanshan. This was an hour in itself.

Once I finally arrived I then queued for my ticket, only to be told the bus today was sold out. Looked like my holiday would be prolonged a little after all.

Fortunately Changsha is a pretty convenient place to get marooned, so I got out my phone and called my friends in a nearby city. They were kind enough to let me come visit and stay with them, so it was back to the city centre and off in another random taxi service to Liuyang.


It was great to see Jess, Sarah and Nick again and of course, any time spent with these guys has to involve some kind of drunken revelry. My girls didn't let me down.

After some quick food and a couple of beers we went to A8, one of their bars that I'm oh so jealous of. We ordered a bottle of red wine mixed up with sprite (really the best way to drink Great Wall), downed it and hit the dancefloor.

The action soon moved onto a podium in the centre of a bar, complete with pole. I am so glad I
took my camera out with me. So many funny shots but the one with the spotlight on the girl watching the dancers may be the best photo I've ever taken.

It was a fun fun evening, and the girls certainly enjoyed themselves. By the end of the night Jess had bagged a man and Sarah had given up walking. She sat down outside the bar and refused to move. We needed to get a taxi though, so I rolled her down to the kerb and left her lying there while we tried to hail one.

We weren't too successful. Don't blame 'em
myself! These girls' reputation precedes them. (PS. my blog is currently blocked in China again so I'm able to post this pic of Sarah cos she'll never find out. Love it.). Luckily Sarah rediscovered her legs after Jess went home with mystery man so we went to celebrate with a fried banana.

Next day was for chilling and eating spaghetti. Then it was home time. I caught a taxi service to the south bus station and was really proud of the fact that we discussed the price together fully in Chinese, but less proud of the fact that I still got charged too much. Obviously a long way to go...
Then I was on my bus home to Lanshan, and somehow it felt like the longest trip of all. The bus was packed to bursting. There were about 20 people sat on small plastic stools in the aisle and at every stop more and more got on. Thank God I'd booked the day before and actually had a seat. At around 11pm we drew into Lanshan and that was it. I was home.

In total I estimate that I'd travelled over 6050km (that's around 3760 miles) - a few hundred more than the distance from London to New York or four times the length of the UK. I'd passed through six Chinese provinces and municipalities (Hunan, Guangxi, Yunnan, Sichuan, Chongqing, Hubei), visiting the capital of each and making use of all modes of transport bar plane and subway. I was on the road for 25 days, and it has taken me as long again just to write it up.

I'd write a list of highlights, save for the fact that there were no real lowlights, but if I had to choose one, it would be Lijiang. Craziest part has to be our epic 2 day taxi ride and the most take-your-breath-away beautiful, the little three gorges. Coolest city would be Wuhan and most 'what the f**k?' has to be the ghost city at Fengdu, or any of those river cruise stops.

Can't wait til the next trip. 8 provinces down, 26 to go...