Race to the border

Aiii! There I was thinking my Chinese bus traumas were over, what with only having 2 more days in the country. Ah, no. We were in Lijiang with what appeared to be 2 days to go on our China visa and we were two overnight bus rides from the border. So why not try a Chinese sleeper bus for the first time? Well I'll tell ya why not.

Picture a coach with a row of bunk beds running the length of the bus against each window. Then picture ANOTHER row of bunks down the middle of the bus. This is a regular sized bus, so clearly the two aisles on either side of the middle row of bunks are so narrow that one can't actually walk down them, but must breathe in deeply, grease oneself up and attempt to squeeze down to one's bed. Which, if you were me, was an upper bunk right in the middle aisle.

I thought the aisles were narrow, the beds were actually so skinny that I couldn't fit my shoulders onto them and so short that I couldn't quite stretch completely out with my head and feet pressed hard against the ends. Bear in mind that I'm only about 5'7" and fairly slight of build, any average sized westerner would have absolutely no chance.

So there I was, after having heard numerous stories of people being fleeced of all their belongings on Chinese sleeper buses, open to thieves on all sides. I was also unable to even sleep on my side due to the sheer terror of rolling and plumetting 6 feet onto the aisle floor on either side because of the driver's kamikaze cornering. So I pressed myself flat on my back, my shoulders bruised from squeezing within the little guardrails, my feet hanging off either side of the bed into the aisle and my eyelids popping open every 30 seconds to check for the sneaky robbers who were undoubtedly casing my moneybelt.

Sarah took two sleeping pills, snuggled against the window and slept soundly. I remained drug free because I was too afraid of dropping off and, well, dropping off.

Getting to Kunming at 8am tired and disorientated we decided that ANOTHER sleeper bus that night just wasn't an option. The Chinese border guards would just have to accept an elastic definition of "30 days". We checked into the hostel, napped, ate, slept soundly in a bed and went shopping for a new camera for me. Hurrah! Wonder how long this one will last. That's 4 cameras I've lost or had stolen in the last 5 years (the last 2 thefts within 6 months). I think I'm rambling now - end of post!