Busing it Around China
http://jnctravel.net
As you may have already heard or read, there are different types of buses, mainly designed on how far you want to go, or what type of trip you're taking. Our usual trips on buses would be from the University of Xiangtan to Xiangtan City, which was around 10 miles and took around 20-30 min depending on which part of town we wanted to go visit.
Or we would go from the school to the capital, Changsha, from the University and that trip would take over an hour and about 35 miles or 56 km one way. The videos below show a little glimpse at the rides we were on and the traffic on the trip. The prices to take these trips can be very cheap, but what we found is just like any form of public transportation, its the time it takes to get from point A to point B and sometimes that can mean a lot of waiting.
The Last type of bus we wanted to address is whats called a "Sleeper Bus." Designed to provide an alternative for those not wanting to take a train, or go to certain areas where the trains wouldn't usually go. We boarded our sleeper bus at 10pm at night, no one speaking English on board, just giving the driver our destination verbally at first and then handing him the slip that one of our students had written down in case they don't understand us.
At about 3 am we were awaken (depends on how you interpret this word, did we really ever slip into a deep restful sleep on hard plastic beds that really only fit people half our size, in length and width...no. Better yet there were community blankets and when people got off, others would use..or in our case NOT use, pretty gross.), more like opened our forced shut eyes to a really worn unshaven face, yelling something, we think was the bus driver. Between finding out that the ride had ended, and we were at some stop in the middle of the night, we got off the bus and thus ended our first and last trip on a "sleeper bus." The story continues, and needless to say it was a LONG night, we had our experience with the Chinese sleeper bus.
So basically it comes down to...EXPECT ANYTHING. We never know what would happen, we could only imagine what could happen, and usually my small town imagination didn't let me think of all the possible scenarios.
Buses like trains are a cheap way to get around China to see the sights, be unadventurous and have fun.
Or we would go from the school to the capital, Changsha, from the University and that trip would take over an hour and about 35 miles or 56 km one way. The videos below show a little glimpse at the rides we were on and the traffic on the trip. The prices to take these trips can be very cheap, but what we found is just like any form of public transportation, its the time it takes to get from point A to point B and sometimes that can mean a lot of waiting.
The Last type of bus we wanted to address is whats called a "Sleeper Bus." Designed to provide an alternative for those not wanting to take a train, or go to certain areas where the trains wouldn't usually go. We boarded our sleeper bus at 10pm at night, no one speaking English on board, just giving the driver our destination verbally at first and then handing him the slip that one of our students had written down in case they don't understand us.
At about 3 am we were awaken (depends on how you interpret this word, did we really ever slip into a deep restful sleep on hard plastic beds that really only fit people half our size, in length and width...no. Better yet there were community blankets and when people got off, others would use..or in our case NOT use, pretty gross.), more like opened our forced shut eyes to a really worn unshaven face, yelling something, we think was the bus driver. Between finding out that the ride had ended, and we were at some stop in the middle of the night, we got off the bus and thus ended our first and last trip on a "sleeper bus." The story continues, and needless to say it was a LONG night, we had our experience with the Chinese sleeper bus.
So basically it comes down to...EXPECT ANYTHING. We never know what would happen, we could only imagine what could happen, and usually my small town imagination didn't let me think of all the possible scenarios.
Buses like trains are a cheap way to get around China to see the sights, be unadventurous and have fun.
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