长白山: Part 2

The Changbai Chronicles, as continued from part two.

After Barney and I arrived at Yanji Train station, we immediately went to the 售票处 shòu piào chù (ticket office) to buy our tickets for the return journey. We could have possibly bought them earlier, but we still weren't sure about the transportation situation waiting for us at our destination, nor were we totally set on our timetable. But, with transportation looking good and a timetable decided upon, we were ready to buy our tickets for the twenty-four hour return in two days' time.

Unfortunately, China was not ready to sell them to us. The ticket agent informed us that there were no beds for the day we wanted to leave - there were seats, but who wants to sit for twenty-four hours? - nor were there beds for the day after OR the day after that. The earliest we could leave was September 4th, which put me in Nanjing on September 5th, the day after I was supposed to have registered. Awesome.


Momentarily stymied, Barney and I left the ticket office to discuss our options as well as find the long-distance bus to our destination town of Erdaobaihe. Our Lonely Planet guide had said that there were multiple buses leaving from Yanji to Erdaobaihe every day, so at 1:20 pm we were sure we would be able to catch one.

Luckily, the bus station was right across the plaza from the train station. We walked over to the long line of buses and began asking around for the bus to Erdaobaihe. After encountering some seriously unhelpful people and being pointed around in circles, I finally cornered this official who had blown us off earlier and asked her about the bus to Erdaobaihe. Her reply: 没有了 méi yǒu le (there's no more). She walked away.

Worried, Barney and I kept looking around until we finally found the bus counter and were able to ask the (noticeably more) friendly agent about buses to Erdaobaihe. She told us that the one that leaves at 1:30 pm just left, and that it was the only bus of the day to go to our destination. Even more awesome.

After a rapid discussion of our options, Barney and I decided to hop the next bus to 安图 Āntú, an intermediary city between Yanji and Erdaobaihe, and see if we could get a bus to Erdaobaihe from there. At the very least we'd be closer to our destination. We ran outside to the bus bound for Antu and managed to grab two of the last seats on the bus. It departed shortly after we boarded.

Long story short, we got to Antu safely and on time. Long story made long again, we had to deal with this part of the way there:

See all those people standing on the side of the road? Those are the passengers of our bus, chilling. They got off the bus because our bus driver decided to play chicken with a bus coming in the opposite direction on a single-lane dirt road. The buses finally stopped within a foot of each other when it was clear that neither could squeeze by the other without driving over the jagged rocks that lined the road. After stopping, they began yelling at each other to back up and let their own bus pass. Neither was giving way, so finally our bus driver dramatically reached for his key and turned off the engine. The other bus driver followed suit. Our bus driver responded by opening the door, walking outside, and strolling around. That's when the rest of the passengers followed. They all began to yell at the other bus driver to back up and let us pass (which is what you see in the picture). At this point we had backed up traffic on either side. Since the other driver still refused to give way, they began pushing the sharp rocks away from the road in order to widen it. Our driver then tried to pass the other bus by driving partially over the rocks, but it wouldn't work. Finally, he went further out onto the rocks and managed to squeeze by the other bus (barely), and we continued on our journey.

I think the lesson I was supposed to learn here is that the farther away one gets from major city centers in China, the more life is conducted by a sort of "law of the jungle" rather than rule of law.

Since this post is already absurdly long, I'll write about the final leg of our journey to Erdaobaihe in the next post. Spoiler alert: it includes befriending an (alleged) lady of the night.

part three