It went like this. We got the bus at the bus station which claimed to be going to Huangshan. Lies, all lies. The bus in fact, after several hours, took us to a truly delightful village called Tangkou. I don't know if any of you have seen the Hills Have Eyes, but in this film, in the middle of the American West desert there is a rundown village full of inbred, deformed cannibals. I couldn't help but feel that Tangkou shared some of the same properties as said village. Except this time, I wasn't in the cinema watching a rubbishy horror film (rubbishy though it was, it still scared the hell out of me!), but I was actually walking through it. We didn't at first realise that this was our final destination because we weren't at Huangshan, but they cleared the bus out and said we'd reached the terminus. Immediately the population was on us like a pack of wild animals, trying to convince us to stay in their hotel, or go to their restaurant, and so on. One particularly tenacious bottomfeeder spoke a little English and told us that we had to catch another bus to Huangshan from the bus station. But for the time being, we'd be better off going to eat in his restaurant. It has Eeeenglish menu. He told us where the bus station was and we set off in that direction. Unfortunately for us, his restaurant was the same way, so he came with us. We were accompanied by a female relation of his, but we were never clear whether she was his wife, or sister, or mother... no idea. She didn't speak putonghua (standard Chinese) but instead spoke some incomprehensible Anhui dialect. The only thing she could say in putonghua was "aren't you cold? You should wear more." She probably knew how to say this because for some reason the Chinese frequently repeat this sentence in a manner similar to a broken record. Or a parrot. Anyway, she enjoyed practising her only putonghua phrase on Liam, and did so repeatedly for the entire 15 minute walk. We were quite disheartened at the development of this Tangkou diversion, and very quickly realised that we didn't stand a chance of getting to Huangshan, climbing it, climbing back down, and getting back to Hangzhou all in one day. This would mean staying in Tangkou that evening and going to Huangshan first thing. Both of us were distinctly uncomfortable in this environment and added to that neither of us actually had enough money with us to afford the hotels (they were stupidly inflated prices in Tangkou, seeing as the buses all stopped there!). Our only choice was to give it all up and go back to Hangzhou.
The annoying man was still trying to convince us to go into his restaurant. We said we wanted bus tickets. He said in his restaurant there were maps which we could look at/buy off him, but we said we didn't want a map. He then said "but you need a map, you can't speak Chinese." That really annoyed us, because he hadn't bothered to find out if we spoke Chinese but just assumed. Plus, how did he think we were responding to his wife-type person if we didn't speak Chinese? A map may well have been useful but Liam and I now make a point of only buying things from/getting into the taxis of etc people that don't pester us in such a rude and inconsiderate manner. We finally managed to fob him off. He left us looking very disgruntled, and we walked on up the street to the bus station, and asked for tickets back that same day, as soon as possible. Suddenly to our horror the man was back, peering over our shoulder! He had driven his pick-up up to the bus station to continue pestering us. He was saying "yesyesyes tomorrow buy bus four o'clock" on loop. He was seemingly oblivious to the fact that the staff were saying "so your bus is at four thirty, okay?" We had two hours or so to wait for the bus and we were at a bit of a loss as to what to do. His constant presence was really grating on me by now. He grabbed our tickets and realised we were going back today instead of tomorrow, which stunned him for a while. But he gathered his reserves and then started saying that we should eat in his restaurant before our bus back home. We told him that under no circumstances were we going to his restaurant. He angrily stormed off to his pick-up truck and we set off down the road to waste two hours doing goodness-only-knows-what. As we were walking he pulled up next to us and tried one last time. We said no. He drove off and as he did yelled at us that we were "stupid foreigners!" Lovely chap. So down the road we continued, and to our dismay, his incomprehensible mystery female relative was standing directly in our path, with another mystery younger female. Liam walked right on past but she took my arm and, suddenly able to speak putonghua, asked me fairly gently why I wasn't going to the restaurant. I said that we weren'y hungry and apologised because she was being much nicer than the man and then went to walk off. Suddenly the other woman turned round and YELLED at me! She said I was stupid, and that I should "get into the restaurant RIGHT now, if I knew what was good for me" (well Chinese to that effect anyway). Obviously I was now certainly not going into the damn restaurant; if I had been willing before, which I wasn't, then I definitely wasn't now!
I stalked off and caught Liam up - he had missed the whole exchange but was not too happy about their attitude either. We spotted a cashpoint and Liam wanted to get some money out because he had practically none. The ATM vestibule was up some steps so we gratefully ran up, and Liam got some money out. We had been hassled every minute of being there thus far and the peace of the vestibule was great; we almost didn't want to leave it! Then to my horror I took a glance down the steps and saw that the man's pick-up truck had stopped next to us. The wife-woman got out and started up the steps towards us. Before she could do anything, Liam went off down the steps past her, and I intercepted her and pre-emptorily said: "Look, I understand you want us to go into your restaurant, but actually, we don't have any money, so there's no point following us. We didn't realise it would take so long to get to Huangshan, but now we know, we realise we can't afford to stay here so we HAVE to go back home. In fact, this is why we were at the bank. But the bank won't give us money, so we still have none. Therefore, if we have no money, we can't spend money, can we?" She shook her head sheepishly and said "buhaoyisi" which is effectively an apology. She got back in the truck at last and must have told the man the state of play because we never saw him again.
But we still had ages to spare. As we walked through the streets, the people all turned to glare at us (they are probably all related to the annoying man and took our refusals personally...). We found one shop where the people didn't hate us on sight and got some snacks. Then we went back to the bus station to wait it out. It was unbelievably boring. We found a lovely little stray dog and it's mother. We called the mom Hope and the dog Lucky. They were our only happy things in the entire town. Hope disappeared for ages, which we took figuratively... all Hope has gone...
After a few more incidences of being pestered to buy various stuff like maps and flowers and so on (including jam, which took me quite by surprise), it was about four and a minibus pulled up. They told us if we wanted to go to Hangzhou, we had to get into this minibus. Hmm. We chose to trust them and hopped in, and sure enough, they took us to a much bigger bus station. Our bus driver from that morning discovered that we were going straight back, which amused him somewhat. And soon we were back off to lovely non-Hills Have Eyes Hangzhou : D
The journey took till late at night because they kept on going through small towns and picking people up at random locations (I have always wondered how these people know where to wait. I have since learnt that you can flag any minibus/coach/bus etc wherever the hell you fancy - if they're allowed to pick more passengers up, they will.) When we got back to Hangzhou we weren't up for much more, and went to bed, having well and truly wasted that day. Hopefully we'll find a way to Huangshan at a later date, perhaps with a tour group. I hate tour groups on principle, but I may have to lower myself to joining one. I have always considered tour groups a bit of a tourism cop-out; if you are going to travel, do it by yourself! I guess in some cases you do learn more than you would just looking by yourself, but if the place you're going has displays then why don't you just read the displays? Since going on a tour to the Great Wall and Ming Tombs with a tour group, my hatred for them has grown. I hate that you have to go at their required pace and have to be interested in what they tell you to be interested in as opposed to what you are genuinely interested in. Now, my feelings towards tour groups has gathered into a sort of frenzied hatred. Everywhere I go in China, there's a goddamn tour group in my way. Grrrrrrr. But if that is my only way to Huangshan that doesn't involve going back to Tangkou EVER AGAIN, then I will take it!
Hiding in the ATM vestibule.
We thought we'd got away in one piece... but Liam caem back without half his body.
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