21st June - Huaihau to Fenghuang, back to Huaihau and then to Chengdu

Insanely busy day!

I did not sleep very well last night as I had been ready for an early night and to go to sleep about 10 but instead I was in a Police car at that time! I had not managed to get to sleep until after 1 and so when I woke up at 7 I decided that this was a very silly idea and went back to sleep until 9.

After breakfast and coffee I got on my bike and go to a train station to try and buy a ticket to go to Chengdu tomorrow night. I had not managed to book the tickets online because you can't pick up tickets at the station when booking that way. You have to go through a company which then posts them to your hotel. It is also very difficult to get tickets to depart from a different station from the station where you are trying to buy tickets as they don't have a centralised computer system.

There are 2 stations in Chengdu. I went to the Southern one as it was the closest to my hotel and it looked like the train line that I wanted to travel on went through this station. After biking around for 1 hour trying to find it and failing I gave up and biked across the city to the other station. I was using google maps and it said that I should have been there but I could not find the entrance. I asked other people using my google translator and they pointed and I still could not find it.

The other station was huge and I found it easily and fortunately found someone that speaks English. There were no sleeper tickets (the non sleepers take 20 hours during the day) for Chengdu tomorrow night and so I was not sure what to do as I really wanted to go see Fenghuang. I decided just to get a ticket for this evening at just past midnight and bus and bike to Fenghuang as it was only a 200km round trip. As I can bike 130km comfortably in a day it should have been fine to get a bus the rest of the way and still have time to see the place and get back for my train. The bus station was on the other side of town and I did not fancy my chances of finding the station and finding a bus going the right way quickly and so I thought that as there is really only one road there it would be easier to bike out of town and pick up a bus when I needed one. It was also a lovely sunny day and I wanted to bike today. Having had 2 days off I was itching to get back on the road so I did not fancy just getting a bus there and back! It was also hot and sunny and being on a bus through lovely countryside in the sunshine would have been very frustrating for me.

I headed off from my hotel without any of my bags about 1.30. It was great to be on the road without any bags to weigh me down. I was looking forward to a good ride but the road condition was terrible. It meant that I was going really slowly. I should have managed to get to Fenghuang in about 3-4 hours by bike with no bags if the road was reasonably flat and in good condition - but unfortunately it was neither!

After a couple of hours of riding I started to hail down buses. It was not easy. I did get a bus for a short distance into Mayang but was then told I needed to change buses to go to Fenghuang. It was only 3.45 at this point and I only had 35km to go and so I thought it would get me there about 4.30 and I would have plenty of time to look round and then get a bus back about 6.30-7. Oh no! I was not to know that they are rebuilding the whole road and that it would actually take until 6.30ish to actually get there! The bus did not leave until 4.30 and then there was a problem with the tyre which they had to fix.


It was funny as when I was passing through the small town of Mayang by bus I once again saw Jean Marc and Marrie! It is very strange that I keep on meeting them even though we were going to go different routes etc.


When I arrived in Fenghuang I was rather worried about getting back in time for my train but there were loads of little vans about the place (that act as taxis) and I knew where the bus station was. The bus station was filled with buses and the whole town was heaving with tourists so I though it highly likely that there would be a bus to the nearest major city (Huaihau) in the evening.


I got on my bike and literally did the fastest ever tour of the city! I was very gald that I did make the effort to get to see this city as it was very beautiful. The houses are mostly made of wood and the old architecture is lovely. The town straddles the river. There are walk ways just above the water level which tourists walk across. There are also loads of old wooden boats that you can take a ride on.


There are loads of little alley ways to explore with cute little shops.


There is an old brick wall which separates the city from the river along most of the banks presumably as a flood defense.

Fenghuang was one place were I would have liked to have been there with other people rather than on my own. It is incredibly touristy. It is one of the few remaining old Chinese cities for people to visit. As everyone was there on holiday with their friends and family, I felt a bit out of place wondering round on my own. I don't feel this so much as I am passing through places where most of the people that are there are residents. I think that if I had stayed longer I would have found a western youth hostel and found some other people to chat too.


Many of the houses are on wooden stilts.


A lot of Chinese restaurants not only have the fish that they will serve you alive in tanks on display outside, they also have the animals. I found it very strange and rather disturbing to see these Ginnie Pigs on show outside one restaurant. The Chinese really do eat anything! This is one side of the Chinese culture I am not very impressed with.


At 7ish I headed back towards the bus station only to find that all of the little vans had disappeared and non of the buses were leaving tonight. All of these thing take a long time to find out when there is no common language...

Eventually at 8.15 (just as I was looking for a place to stay and give up on the idea of catching my train) I found a taxi driver that would take me - but only for £35! I knew that if I stayed then it would mean that I would not be able to get to Chengdu for at least another 2 days and I really did not want to do that as it would mean I would not have time to meet up with Jenna and get to Xian and so I decided to take the taxi (even though it blew my budget!). However, taking the taxi was a risk as I might not catch the train on time in which case I would have preferred to have spent a day or so in Fenghuang rather than in Huaihau.


We left the town at 8.30. The driver had said 3 hours so that should have been ok to get back to Hauhaui and then pick up my bags and get to the station for my train at 00:20. However, the taxi driver kept on getting lost in the dark in all of the mud. It really was not clear where the road went and what was just other mud tracks. We had to turn back several times. It was actually a bit stressful, particularly as the taxi driver did not seem very bothered about whether I caught my train or not. He understood very well that I needed to catch it but was just pottering around the city letting every other taxi over take at speed past us!

We arrived in Huaihau at 23.50 and drove to pick up my bags and then went to the station. I had to put my bike back together again (as it had been taken apart to fit in the boot of the taxi) and throw all of my bags on to it in about 2 minutes and then run with my bike to the station (the taxis could only park about half a km from the front of the station). I could not ride the bike as I had not managed to put my chain on properly nor attach my breaks in enough time. I literally arrived at the station at 00:20 when my train left at 00:22 only to be confronted with security. I did not realise that Chinese railways have security like other countries have at airports. Everything has to be scanned and x-rayed etc. I managed to look very stressed and sweaty and covered in oil and shouted "Chengdu train, Chengdu train". I think that they thought I was some mad foreigner who had been out in the midday sun too long and it had cooked my brain (not far off the mark). They let me pass through without security checks and radioed forward to the train. I then had the challenge of getting my bike up 4 flights of stairs to go over the platform and then down another 4 flights of stairs. My bike is HEAVY and I can hardly lift it as it is. Fortunately a lovely Chinese man helped me but it still took several minutes. I was panicking as I thought that there was no way I would catch the train. When I got to the station there it was waiting for me!

I lifted it up on to the train and was very very happy when a girl member of the train staff said "relax, relax. This is the train to Chengdu and you have caught it just in time". By this point I was literally dripping in sweat and covered in oil from trying to put my bike back together again so quickly. It took me about 30 minutes to be able to breathe again and walk through the train to the carriage where my bunk was and then cart all of my bags and my bike to the correct region. The staff were extremely helpful. The Chinese people are generally really lovely people.

I eventually got into my bunk (the top one in 3) at about 1.30. I was still covered in oil as there was no place to easily wash it off. I had tried with a cloth but really it needed hot soapy water. I felt rather grotty to say the least!

I was high on adrenaline all day today in order to catch my train. I am really glad that I did see Fenghuang as it is one of the only really old Chinese cities but it was very stressful to do so and this detracted from my enjoyment of the place. It also ended up being an expensive exercise. However, I was extremely fortunate to catch that train! If I had not done so it would have been an expensive exercise and I would have ended up in Huaihau (a medium sized boring city) not knowing what to do for a couple of days. It would have been the worst of all out comes as rather than catching the taxi I could have just stayed in Fenhuang and enjoyed that city instead.