We have been traveling for the past few days now… and there is still more to do. China is a big country, but I have to believe that after all these bus rides, I’ve seen most of it! The 1st bus ride was only about 8 hours, but the amount of room on that bus was slim. Though there were two seats, they were big enough for only the smallest of Chinese people. So when Gary and I tried to fit, tight wasn’t really the word to describe. I don’t think the bus was put together to well either. The window beside seemed like it would rattle off and that wouldn’t be good because I was already getting a chilly draft from the doorway.
There were many of us on that first bus, and so there was a massive amount of luggage on the top of the bus. Praise God for cargo nets to keep it there because the mountain curves we went around would have certainly confiscated them had there been no net. When we got to our destination, and the drivers unloaded our stuff on the side of the street due to a blow out, I noticed my pack was a little dirty. Again, thank the Lord that we were in our city at the time of the blowout and not in the desolate mountain passes we had been traveling through. We were a few miles away from our hotel, so we hopped in taxis. Gary, Sarah, and I managed to sqeeze in with our stuff, and that’s when I smelled something like rotten fish.
Perhaps it’s the taxi… or the taxi driver. But after some invesitgating, I discovered that it was my backpack that reaked of rotten fish. I don’t knowwhat was piled on top of my stuff on that bus…but it exploded and drenched my pack with an awful foulness that couldn’t be described in words. Luckily I had picked up some Baby Wipes in LA, and I gave it a scrubdown.
The city we were in was quite big, and to our wonderful amazement, this city contained a KFC! That’s right folks… I enjoyed the Colonel’s cookin’ all the way in China. I had an outerbody experience when I ate my mashed potatoes. Heaven will have a KFC… (and a Chik-Fil-A!).
The next morning we got on our bus further into the bleakness that is western China. It was orginally supposed to be a sleeper bus (still trying to figure out how that works)… but due to booking problems, we were on a 19 hour trip on a regular bus. It was more comfortable than bus #1, but after a while you wanted to recline back a little… then at night…well I’ll get to that.
Not long after the bus took off, we stopped for lunch. I know why we stopped so quickly, because after we left the resturant, it was complete desolation for hours. Take parts of the midwest that are filled with cornfields, times that by 100 and add sand and rocks instead of corn, and you’ll get a picture of our journey. To beat all, there are no bathrooms on this not-so-luxary bus, and with no place to stop for hours, you get to use the Tibetan plateau as your toliet!
That’s right folks, we were all going right out in the open, and occasionally in ditches all through the day and night. Who can say that they have done that?? Not to many people I’m sure. The bus ride started to get long after a hours of sitting and staring out the window. That’s when the fun started though. The chain-smoking Chinese bus drivers and passengers get on your nerves a little more, the Chinese music playing loudly on the speakers rattles your ears, and the unpaved roads give your bootie a little massage. When night crept in on us, the temperature took a dramatic drop. We noticed the buildup of ice on the windows. It finally got to the point where you couldn’t see out at all, and the cold had overtaken our uncomfortable bodies.
People were getting sick for various reasons. The altitude was giving some people breathing problems. It was a long night of nodding off sitting up, having your head jerked around like a doll, and coughing up the cigarette smoke of the driver. But we made it to our city.
At 6:30 in the morning we pulled into town, unloaded our stuff and trudged on down the street to a hotel. We had to cause a commotion to get them to open the doors and let us in. We quickly figured out our room situations because we had been standing outside in 15 degree weather for about 30 minutes. Sarah, Kim, Lana, and I barely made it up the stairs to our room on the third floor. The altitude had definetly made that a much bigger task than it would normally be. We went to sleep under piles of clothes and blankets, woke up this afternoon, and are still trying to stay warm.
We have a meeting shortly andwill work out our last travel plans. Teams are splitting up and going to separate cities again, and so that means another bus trip tomorrow. We’ll be there for a few short days before we start the trek out of China. That will be a killer trip. Pray for us. Pray for our health and the ministry in the cities. Pray for endurance and perseverance for this amazing, but tough journey we are all on. Thanks for all the prayers.
We might not be able to post for a while, don’t panic. Things will be great. – Ashley
