July 26: Crazy bus drivers in Suzhou

Here I’ll detail the final two full days of my journey:

On Sunday (July 26) I woke up early and explored Xitang for an hour, watching the people go through their morning routines (although most had been up for hours already, it seemed). The town was calm as villagers did their washing and prepared for the flood of tourists to arrive later. I was particularly amused by the ducks “farm” in the water, where the chicks were herded by a man in a boat. It was rather hilarious and adorable. Then I went back to bed and woke up after another hour and a half.

Returning to Xitang proper, I had to pay an entry fee. By this time (10:00 AM), the tourists were out in force, and there were many shops everywhere selling overpriced goods of various sorts. I mostly just wandered, trying to take a boat down the canal. Alas, I would have had to go alone and did not have the money to afford the trip, which was split among members of the party.

After a brief “breakfast” of fried tofu and some sort of sweet gelatin, I returned to the inn, gathered my gear, and wandered in a direction that I hoped would bring me to a bus station capable of taking me to Jiashan. I did find it after a great deal of searching, and a number of helpful pointers from rickshaw drivers. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned, but by this point, my bags have gotten quite heavy, especially after silk shopping in Hangzhou. So I got back to Jiashan safely (with a Spanish, Cantonese and Mandarin lesson all under my belt).

The bus from Jiashan to Suzhou was insane, or at least the driver was. Quite apart from the racket he and his wife were running where they picked up passengers on the road for a little personal cash (or so it appeared), he would honk at every car (with a piercing, horrible horn) he passed, whether on our side or on the opposite side of the road. Additionally, when on a one lane road, he’d pass in the oncoming lane, and honk furiously when an oncoming vehicle came too close. Regardless of whether it was his fault or not (it usually was), he would essentially drive the car legitimately in the lane off the road. This occurred too many times to count.

Once in Suzhou, the honking only intensified and didn’t stop. By the bus station, it felt like New York, only less polite and more civilized with the car traffic. I found the correct bus after trial and error, wound up at the correct bus stop, then utterly failed at finding the hostel using the map the hostel provided on the internet. It was only by frequently asking for directions, lucky wandering, and a pair of helpfully foreign (i.e. white) other hostelees who guided me to the hostel that I found it at all. The hostel is lovely, in a very Asian style, with open-air courtyards in various places, including by the door to go outside. So ironically, to get to the other half of the hostel, I have to wait by the sliding door in the rain, before I can walk outside into the covered walkway, then back inside into the rain. For it was raining much of the time in Suzhou.

I went out to dinner with the helpful pair I met earlier. Francesca is from Italy and Daniil is from Slovenia. After considerable wandering, we found a small noodle shop, where the cook kneaded the dough and pulled the noodles by hand, right in front of us. He literally folded and stretched the noodles until they were the correct length and thickness, and then cooked them. Apparently, these chefs are the lowest on the hierarchy or cooks in China, but his noodles were fantastic, and people in the US would pay a fortune to see the “show.” The only trouble with the dish was, serving it was next to impossible, given that the dish was essentially one giant noodle. We shared our bounty amid trying to serve the continuous noodle with chopsticks.

We wandered back to the Hostel and looked for a tea shop. Because most of them were closed, we settled for the one next door to the hostel. Francesca and I discussed the pair’s trip on the Trans-Siberian Railroad before traveling in China, linguistics, and the differences between sex-ed in Italy and the US. Then it was off to bed.

Word of the day: tiujian (recommend/recommendation)