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Guangzhou Sunday, January 28 to Thursday, February 1

Sunday

Monday

Walked through pedestrian shopping district to find a temple that was being refurbished. Walked further and found ourselves in some narrow streets where everyone was selling Jade amulets and other small antiques. Ended up at 4 p.m. at the Chen Clan Temple and barely had enough time to do it justice before it closed at 5:30. Wished we had had more time as the shops there had unusually nice teasets which we might have bought and silk rugs, which Jan also wants to buy more of.Hope we’ll find some in Kunming.

Tuesday: Spent most of the day at the Guangzhou art museum (see Gerry’s pictures).

Wednesday: Stayed in the hotel most of the day. Went to the Post Office and to look for a bank to change money. We found it close to our original breakfast shop but it was closed by the time we got there.

Thursday: Had breakfast at our old tea shop. Changed money at the Bank of China opposite and then went back to the hotel and made a phone call to book a room at the Star Crag Guesthouse (Xing Yan Binguan) then went down and checked out.

Took a taxi to the long distance bus station that is near the train station getting there soon after 11 a.m. The crowds around the station looked to be enormous and the taxi driver did his best to stoke our fears of not getting a ticket as he wanted us to pay him Y400 to drive us to Zhaoqing.

The hardest part was unloading our bags from the taxi, keeping them dry, fighting off the horde of porters, and keeping the taxi driver from getting too impatient while the queue behind him were all honking their horns! The Chinese have not yet figured out how to organize taxi drop-offs and pickups in a way that doesn’t cause total havoc. Here, for example, we were forced to get out of the taxi at a point where a railing along the edge of the sidewalk prevented us from unloading our bags directly onto the sidewalk. Jan had to run along the railing to find a break then run back so she could help Gerry lift the bags over the railing. If you have only one small suitacase it is probably not a problem, but with our haul of 1 suitcase, three soft travel bags, one large backpack, two small backpacks, and two luggage carts, it is very difficult.

We picked one of the horde of porters and for Y5 got him to trundle half of our bags into the bus station where it was dry. Gerry then waited with him while Jan went to try and buy tickets. She was pleased with how easy it was. She took the escalator to the first floor and there found the bus departure bays. She asked where the ticket office was and was directed to a small hall only 20 meters away. There she chose the shortest line, hoping that you could buy a ticket for any destination in any line. Just before she reached the head of the queue, a security guard asked where she wanted to go. She told him in Chinese and pointed to the pin yin name that she had already written in her notebook to try and forestall confusion. Of course if she had been really organized, she would have brought the Lonely Planet Guide with the Chinese spelling! 

The line moved very quickly and in another couple of minutes she had two tickets on the 11:45 a.m. bus (twenty minutes away) for Y35 each. Pleased with her job, she went back down the escalator and found Gerry and an increasingly impatient porter. The fact that he was getting double or triple rate for a very easy job didn’t matter - he was afraid he was losing customers. But we prevailed upon him to help us up the escalator and to find the right departure bay before we let him go. The bus ride was mostly uneventful. We had good seats behind the driver, but the weather was so dull and rainy that there was little of interest to be seen. /p>