Friday, March 21, 2014 - Cherryblossom in China

Well the original plan was that a colleague and I would go to Japan and enjoy spring there. Due to various reasons this did not happen. Instead we ended up travelling a bit in China. :D

以及原來的計劃是，我和一個同事會去日本，享受春天在那裡。由於種種原因，這並沒有發生。相反，我們結束了在中國旅行了一下。

I would go from Dhaka to Shanghai, we travel a bit and then I go back from Canton to Dhaka.

Of course it was not as easy as that! :D Traditionally my flights do not go as scheduled.

Same this time. The legs were Dhaka - Kunming - Shanghai. Due to bad weather conditions over Kunming we landed in Canton instead. But were not allowed to leave the plane. Instead we sat on the runway for two hours. Not a biggy. But due to that I missed my connecting flight - with no possibility to let my colleague know. :( I also found out that most of the other travellers did not speak English. Which came as a surprise. But they still were very nice and a Japanese and a Chinese guy tried to help me out - lending me their cellphones - even dialing since I could not operate them...

With two hours delay we landed around 11 pm in Kunming. The airport was closing down and the ground staff did not speak English either. Therefore I moonlighted around until I made my way up to the departure area where a lonely counter was open to service us. I was booked on another flight around 2 pm the next day. A bus was organised to bring us to a hotel. Lobby (looks nicer than it was):

They had lots of surprises in store. Since also the hotel staff did not speak English either I would not even have known. A cool Bangladeshi (named Jewel - I called him my gem after the night...) organised a Chinese guy (came back from Bangladesh; working with chicken feed) who could speak English and was so kind to translate for us. The surprises were like: Guests were supposed to share a room with another person unless the could pay extra. (My gem expected that and could pay. I had no money.) No food could be offered apart from instant noodles. Despite promising otherwise there was no Internet available in the rooms. I could receive Wifi at the reception area but could not open a website. Facebook I did not even need to try since it is blocked in China which I had forgotten. Most troublesome apart from other things was, that apparently my transport back to the airport could not be guaranteed. My flight ticket for the next day:

Being stranded at midnight in China. No possibility to communicate - Language barrier and technical barrier Internet/Mobile. No money. Could not adjust my watch, key was brocken. No one to sort things out.

I decided to spent the night awake at reception and to wait for my Bangladeshi gem to go back with him to the airport at 5:30 am. (He had invited me to his room. Saying he would just shower and watch Telly and I was invited to join him for a conversation. But I was not quiet sure about that. ;))

Back at the airport. A very new and beautiful construction. Opened in June 2012.