长白山: Part 3

The Changbai Chronicles, as continued from a previous post.

After arriving at Antu and being directed to the long-distance bus station by a friendly shopkeeper, Barney and I were ecstatic to see an empty bus with the word Erdaobaihe written across its window in huge characters. We went up to the official hovering by the entrance and asked where to buy a ticket for the bus. He gave us a funny look, walked over to a nearby throng of people, came back and said, "没有票了 méi yǒu piào le (there are no more tickets)." He then told us that the next bus to Erdaobaihe was leaving at 5:30 the next morning.


At that point, I was in pretty low spirits, so when a guy walked up to Barney and me and offered to drive us there for ¥80 each, I was seriously tempted. Barney, however, wanted to check all other possibilities before choosing what was, admittedly, a somewhat sketchy option.

After realizing that there was no other option, we went back and took the guy up on his offer. As we were getting into the car, Barney and I were surprised to see that we would be joined by two female passengers, one of whom was noticeably drunk, and, according to Barney, noticeably a prostitute. She was enthralled by my Chinese speaking skills, and confused at Barney's lack thereof. When I told her that Barney was American, not Chinese, she became even more confused and spent a significant portion of the ride puzzling it out. She also became upset any time Barney and I spoke English to each other because she couldn't understand what we were saying.

Even with all the awkwardness of talking to this really drunk lady and her friend, I was inwardly pleased by the fact that I understood around 95% of what she said, and was able to answer accordingly. She even taught me a phrase, 缘分 yuánfèn, which apparently Barney learned in class but I had never heard before. Roughly translated, it implies that fate brought people to meet each other, imbuing the meeting with particular significance. I'm not sure what significance our encounter held, but it was awkwardly entertaining, and not a bad way to pass the final leg of our journey to Erdaobaihe.

part four