A Short Letter Home

Then I'm going home

And so our vacation ended. We packed our bags, boarded the bus and headed home. Oh, wait. That was our plan. The reality was slightly different.

Our town is closer to Jinghong than Kunming, so we figured that rather than flying to Kunming and then taking a long bus ride home, we'd just take a slightly shorter bus ride directly to our town. The catch is, that one can't go buying bus tickets online or in any old ticket office. To take a bus out of Jinghong, we'd need to buy our tickets in Jinghong. Usually that's no problem, so despite the slight inconvenience of having to take a side trip to the bus station, it was a good plan.

What we lao wai didn't consider is the effect Spring Festival has on the travel industry in China. Traveling back to spend Spring Festival with your family is essential, so the bus and train lines are packed. When we tried to arrange a bus trip home, less than a week before Spring Festival, we were told that there were no tickets available. The best they could offer was passage to the next major city, but there was no guarantee that we could score further passage onward. If we could speak Chinese, we might have considered risking it, but given our poor language ability, it was not a good option.

Our next step was to hire a private car and driver to take us home. It was an expensive option, but certainly cheaper than flying or spending an extra week in Jinghong. Our "boss"--I should mention that our boss was the one handling all the arrangements--asked the hotel concierge to help set this up. Well, he tried, but the only drivers he could round up weren't licensed to leave the prefecture. Again we'd be stuck going part way.

Our next option was to fly back to Kunming and then fly home. Again, it was an option that was cheaper than paying for hotel rooms. (If only we had brought Gail and Whitney with us! They could have found us cheap rates.) Purchasing plane tickets, oddly enough, was no problem. We all trooped down to the Hotel's business center and they got us set. When departure day arrived, instead of saying goodbye to the team, we all headed to the airport together.

Upon our arrival in Kunming, we then said our goodbyes. We checked in for our next flight and went in search for a place to eat. Unfortunately, time was tight and we started looking on the wrong side of the airport. We chose a restaurant that turned out to be quite pricey. Partly because of the cost and partly because of the time crunch, we just ordered up some fried rice. Foolishly, we ordered four plates of the stuff. Two would have sufficed for the lot of us. Especially since the stuff wasn't all that great. But we choked it down, the stress of the moment bearing down upon us.

After lunch we headed to the gate and settled down for a short wait. The short wait turned long as there turned out to be mechanical problems with the plane. Fortunately we had things to read, so we waited with some patience. An hour or two after our scheduled departure they finally announced that we were heading out on a different plane. We happily walked down to the bus which shuttled us over to our waiting plane. Without much fuss we took off and were heading westward.

The flight is short and after about twenty minutes we were told to put up our tray tables and all that. The sky was overcast (or should I say undercast, since we were above cloud level?), so we couldn't see the land below us. We started our descent and we could feel the bumps of turbulence. Suddenly there was a big BUMP! and we were tossed up. There were a couple of shrieks, followed by some nervous laughter. I thought it was a fun ride, myself. Then there was another BUMP! followed by the same shrieks and chuckles. I noticed that the turbulence was quite heavy and we were not only being bumped, but the plane was rocking a bit. When the third BUMP came, I started thinking about how one of my teammates was talking about the flight to Jinghong and how she had been contemplating how far up we had been. I began to seriously wonder if my fun little roller coaster ride had not turned into a one way trip to the Pearly Gates.

There were a bit more bumps and swaying and then the pilot gunned the engines. I could feel the plane rising and turning, and took comfort that the turbulence was smoothing out. Then I noticed that the sun was starting to shine from behind the plane. My suspicions were confirmed when the pilot made an announcement and I heard the collective groan of the other passengers. The English version of the announcement followed, "Because of the rough weather, we are returning to Kunming." I had at least hoped they'd divert to Dali or something. Ah, well. Better a later flight than an early crash. Of course, I seemed to recall something about our airport not being set up to handle nighttime flights....

When we got back to Kunming we got the scoop: The airline would put us up for the night and then send us back out the next day. Since we weren't quite sure what was happening we hung back and so missed the first bus out to the hotel. Then it turned out that the other bus was broken. So the China Eastern folks started hailing cabs. Because of reticence, we were one of the last parties to get sent off. But the airline dude gave complete instructions to our cabbie and we drove off into the night.

Our cab hopped on the expressway and started heading west. I had no clue at the time where the hotel was located, but I was surprised that it wasn't close to the airport. Our driver was friendly enough, but of course, we couldn't engage in small talk. He switched on either a CD or radio station that featured English songs. Unfortunately, I don't care for most of the English songs that are popular out here. But hey, it's the thought that counts. After a bit, our cabbie slowed down for a traffic tie up. There were a number of cars that had stopped and were trying to turn around and head down an entrance ramp. Our cabbie made a brief attempt to do this, too, but the traffic was so hectic that he finally gave up and sped off down the now clear roadway. I should mention that the main road heading west out of Kunming seems to be in a continual state of construction. We drove for an awful long while and I started seeing signs pointing to the distant cities we had just passed through a half week before. I briefly wondered how much the cab driver would want to drive us all the way home.

About the time I thought that maybe the cabbie was kidnapping us, he managed to exit the expressway and get us onto the surface road below the viaduct. That particular stretch of road was about as smooth as our attempted landing, but at least we were headed back into the city. After another long stretch, he made a right and I started recognizing some landmarks. We finally pulled up in front of a nice big hotel. We had no bags, but our cabbie graciously escorted us to the front desk and made sure that we were in the right place. We exchanged our boarding passes for a couple room keys and were quickly ushered into the restaurant for supper. There were a few cooks and servers having their dinner, a sure sign that we were late. After our disappointing lunch, I had been looking forward to a Western-ish dinner at Dico's. But hunger is the best sauce, so I was able to enjoy the provided meal.

After supper we headed back to the desk and were quickly intercepted by the clerk. We were told that our rooms were in a different building, across the way. We headed over there and found our rooms. Apparently we were in some sort of training hotel. The rooms we had were somewhat spartan, without room heat or hot showers. With resignation we climbed into bed and looked forward to the morning, when we could have another try at getting home.

And we did. Our new flight departed a bit after lunch, which gave me a chance to run to the downtown Carrefore's and buy some cookies. And you know, any vacation that ends with cookies can't be all bad...

posted by John @ 11:28 PM