My bus ride will take me from the province of Hunan to the city of Longsheng 龙胜 in the neighboring province of Guangxi 广西 to the south. It was a smooth ride for the most part. We stopped in the middle of nowhere for dinner which I didn’t really partake of since I already had mine. However after that the road turned from good to bad. Our driver was very careful in driving since it was a sleeper bus. The way sleeper buses work here is, there are slots for your feet to slip in, underneath the passenger in front of you. So in effect you are sleeping on top of someone else’s feet. There is a solid piece of metal with cushions for you to lie on so you won’t actually be sleeping on someone else’s feet. It wasn’t that uncomfortable but I couldn’t sleep much anyway at least I could lie down.
The bus provided blankets for the cold trip which I was thankful for. However, what bothered me the most was that there was a passenger or two who couldn’t resist the urge to smoke, inside the bus! I thought that since this bus is pretty decent they would obey the rules more but now. I am only thankful for the fact that he did not smoke through the entire trip. I was tempted to smash the window just to let some fresh air in though.
A few more hours into the trip, it was obvious that the bus was going through some rough road but it was too dark to see. Maybe, it would have been better that I did not see the road at all. This slowed down the bus even more. I’m glad we are in capable and safe hands since this driver was not the reckless type.
Just a few minutes before midnight, the bus driver woke me up and told me to get off, since I have reached my destination of Longsheng city. I groggily got off the bus and got my stuff from under the bus. They pointed out some hotels for me to check in for the night, which was fortunately just nearby.
It turns out that this wasn’t the place I wanted to go to, but I guess Longsheng is another one of those big cities which stretch for kilometers from the center. Anyway, I walked up the main street, there was only one along the mountainside. The first hotel I saw was the Yalong Hotel 亚龙宾馆. It was a nice and decent hotel from the outside, fortunately they still have a room so I took it since I was so tired and I didn’t have the strength to check out the other hotels.
As expected the hotel as nice and clean, it comes with hot water and a built in toilet. And being in the middle of nowhere is was also cheap at RMB60. All of the paperwork done, I quickly moved into the room and quickly fell asleep. This is so much better than a sleeper bus.
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