Lost in Changsha

So, after three weeks of attempting to go to Changsha for the weekend, we finally managed it!  On Wednesday we asked the volunteers to book us a hotel and train ticket – only to find 2 minutes later that catching a train isn’t actually safe for “foreigners” because there are (apparently) a lot of people going home for the summer.  We were strongly encouraged (read, told) not to catch the train and to catch the coach instead.  So, that’s what we did!

Off the coach station we waddled – via McDonald’s – to catch a coach to Changsha.  RMB 24 (£2.40) was the price of the coach for a 1 hour journey across the province!  Alex escorted us to the coach station and onto the coach and then recruited a (random) Chinese lady (or two) to “look after us”.  One lady was even instructed to take us directly to our hotel!  She wouldn’t let us pay for our taxi and spoke not a word of Queen’s English, yet was being as lovely as pie to us just on the basis that “Alex asked”.  However, her part in this story doesn’t end here!

This nice young lady took us to the hotel and then left us at the entrance.  We phoned Alex and asked him to translate what the receptionist was saying and found out that check-in had to be before 1930 and that they’d sold our room to someone else which meant they were full! So now, we’re stuck in a city that (appears) to speak very little English, with no way of getting home from where we were and nobody around to help us find another hotel!  Luckily, our female guardian angel came back (after being summoned by Alex) with 5 of her friends to escort us to a taxi for the taxi driver to take us to another hotel!  Luckily, this hotel had a spare room and allowed us to check-in!

It was nice to finally lie down on a bed in Changsha and have a weight lifted from our shoulders because we’d actually secured a room for the night.  Unfortunately, my lie-down was short lived as Gemma quickly found out that the plugs don’t work and I was promptly sent down the stairs to reception to try and convey that the plugs don’t work to a team of people that speak no English at all! After they realised what had happened, they picked up a radio and shouted a few words that sounded no different to complete gibberish.  I was then asked to “wait”!  What I didn’t realise was that 4 Chinese men had descended upon our room to fix the plugs, brandishing screwdrivers and gadgets to fix the plug sockets.  Bearing in mind these men speak only Chinese and that when the Chinese speak they seem to shout at each other – Gemma was now confused as to why there were suddenly 4 men stood in the goldfish-bowl-sized-room with screwdrivers and tools and all sorts!

After returning to the room I was able to enjoy a night’s sleep in a (relatively) comfy bed with a proper duvet…until we were awoken to the theme tune of “QI” by Gemma’s phone!  We promptly washed and packed our things before heading downstairs to find out where breakfast was being served – again, the flaw in this plan was the lack of English speaking staff!  We decided to head into town and find breakfast elsewhere.  Our choice wasn’t limited but we didn’t understand a single menu or sign, so Starbucks it was!  We had roast sandwiches (chicken and strawberry jam) and some nice coffee!  Unfortunately, we were getting too used to Chinese prices and we were extremely shocked to find that the prices were the same as in the UK, with an extra zero!

Next stop on our tour was Changsha zoo!  Before heading there, we wanted to know how much a taxi was going to cost – again, lack of English speakers made this really, really difficult (and to think I’m here teaching English)!  We decided to just go for it and slowly watched the meter increase in price for twenty minutes.  A 33 kilometre journey cost us RMB 60 (£6) – bargain!

We managed to get to the zoo in one piece and then find our way to the entrance – RMB 80 (£8) for an adult ticket.  We even purchased a bus ticket so that we can hop on and off the cart like buses that take you all around the zoo.  Our first stop was the tigers!  We were quite horrified at the very small cages they were being kept in at first, but later found that they were allowed to leave the cages and enter the “safari” park which gave them plenty of room to run around as they pleased – although most of them were lay on their backs because of the 37 degree, 100% humidity weather!

Our second stop was the elephant show.  RMB 10 got us entry into a very spectacular show – full pictures at the bottom!

Gemma even had a photo on an elephant!  I was hoping that I’d be able to get a photo with a tiger (due to previous stories about Chinese zoos) but sadly I never found such an opportunity!

After the elephants it was onwards!  We saw some pandas and monkeys and all the usual culprits that you’d expect to find in a zoo.  On the way back down in the direction of the exit we had a Chinese man attempting to usher us onto a tour bus – we didn’t understand why so kept trying to tell him that we’ve seen the zoo.  Nonetheless, we got onto the bus and set out on the tour.  What the chappy we previously saw failed to tell us was that it was a safari and not just a tour! We were taken through the back “forests”  of the zoo to see tigers, giraffes, bears, horses, ponies, camels and a few other animals!  It made the trip that little bit more worth while.

The tour came to an end and we decided to head to our next stop – “Orange Continent”; AKA, “Orange Island”.  It’s basically a strip of land in the middle of the river that is famous for one reason or another.  On the island, they have a million or so orange tress in every spare inch of dirt and a nice garden area and a giant statue… of someone’s head at one end.  For RMB 20, we got a tour bus around the island – which after 6 hours on our feet, was needed!

We took a few photos and looked around a bit before deciding that it’s time to find somewhere to eat.  We opted for KFC!  It was delicious! It was so nice to have western food touching our lips – our stomachs thought it was Christmas all over again.  Whilst eating we had a “deaf” guy come and try and sell us hand made bracelet type things – we gave in a purchased them.  I’ll give him his credit as they do like nice.

After KFC it was time to try and find the coach station and start our journey home.  Easier said than done! In Zhuzhou we’re used to just sticking your hand in the air and having a taxi pull up beside you to take you to your destination, however in Changsha it’s extremely difficult to find a vacant taxi! They don’t appear to have heard of “taxi ranks” and seem to drive around endlessly looking for their next fare.  We gave in and started walking in the direction of the train and coach station until we found a bus stop.  A quick 2 minute “pointing” session with some Chinese people and we’re on a bus that is (apparently) going to take us to the train station!

The bus comes to a stop and we alight.  Now it was time to use the map that Alex had kindly drawn for us, to work out where we were and where we needed to go!  The problem was, we didn’t know any other place than the bus station so the map was useless as we could hold it anyway around as the bus station was in the middle of it!  We wandered around for a bit until we remembered Alex had written a few phrases down for us – such as “Help! I’m an English idiot and don’t know where the coach station is.  Can you show me please?”.  It worked!  A nice Chinese person pointed us in the right direction and we were one step closer to getting home.

Next challenge: Purchasing two single tickets from Changsha to Zhuzhou.  Luckily Alex figured we’d have issues with this so wrote a paragraph of Chinese symbols which would allow us to buy a ticket.  I believe it translates to something along the lines of “These English muppets need two tickets from Changsha to Zhuzhou, without insurance.  Please give it to them.  After they’ve paid, please show them to the right coach.  If you don’t, they’ll stand around the coach station forever and keep trying to ask you questions about how to get back to Zhuzhou – it’s in your best interests that you just show them where the coach is”.  Again, this appeared to work and the nice young lady behind the desk went out of her way to walk us to the right coach!

At last! We were on our way home.  Our time in Changsha was fun – even if it was rather short.  It was just nice to get away from work for a while, rather than being stuck in the same city with very little to do.  Hopefully, we’re going to have another two day trip to some distant place… Maybe Xian to see the Terracotta Warriors or possibly Shanghai; who knows?