I lost all the photos of Baihou :(
02.04.2017 - 03.04.2017
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Living in Guangdong
on baixing's travel map.
I wanted to go with Jessica to this jimjilbang she found in Guangzhou, but suddenly she changed her mind about which day we were going, and it messed up all of my plans, so I went on my own to Dabu, where there were some old Hakka villages.
I took the bus early in the morning to Guangzhou, and tried to get out of there as fast as possible, but it was total chaos. That was everyone else's plan as well. I had to go across the city to the correct bus station, which was a complete nightmare. Everywhere I wanted to go was fenced off and impossible for me to navigate. Eventually, I just started yelling WO BU DONG and pointing at where I wanted to go. I could see my gate, but had no idea how to get there. Finally, the guard took pity on me. I'm sure I wasn't the first one to do that. He let me through the "out only" gate. That simply never existed on a normal day, and I went to get on my bus.
Prior to this, I had been waiting four hours for my bus, presumably because they had already all sold out. So, after sitting around stuffing my face with overpriced mapo tofu, I was not in the mood for these crowd control measures that made no sense.
The bus ride was way longer than I anticipated, but still it wasn't that late when we arrived. I walked around trying to find a cheap place and eventually I did, at 11:30 p.m. At 10, I had found an OK place, but I thought it was early, so I kept looking. I didn't find any cheaper places, so on principle, I had to keep looking because by then, I had already forgot where the first place was. Ugh. It ended up working out for the best anyway. I found a little guest house with fresh blankets (non-moldy smelling sheets are a rarity around here). I took a shower and tried to wake up early for my adventures in the countryside in the morning.
It was hard to get out of bed, but I did it, and took the bus to Baihou, a little village with western influenced mansions amidst rice fields. I wandered around, getting lost amongst the greenery. Eventually, I found my way back, and a nice minibus driver picked me up to bring me back to Dabu.
My photos inexplicably disappeared, so I stole some of these photos from China Daily.
