Friday, March 06, 2009

The worst imaginable thing that could happen during traveling is that a bag with your valuables is stolen or missing. We lost a bag when returning back to America from China the first time. It seemed rather suspicious, as we arrived in Chicago after our first flight was canceled but found that our bags made the flight. There was no way we were going to let something like that happen again, but that was until we traveled for over a day straight. We made our trip from Kuta (Danpassar) Indonesia to Kuala Lumpur, catch our connecting flight, arriving around midnight and started doing the routine arrival cards when we saw a group of Chinese women totally lost. They were waiting in line and then started walking around the area looking like they needed help. Maybe we could help...we started trying to translate the arrival cards into chinese because they are completely in English. This was going to take forever spelling out everything until they gave us their National ID cards and we got a line of workers waiting for us to write out their cards...many of the questions we had to just answer 'Other' because they did not know the meaning and our Chinese was not up to date...little practice in Indonesia and only some with a 4 year old in malaysia. They all made it through customs, as did we 45 minutes later than we thought.

Our next flight wasn't until 5:50 am, so we had a long wait and found that we were not the only ones. There were people everywhere sleeping on every chair and open space. We piled our bags up and found an open place and tried to sleep--Patty succeeded better than I. By the time, we made it onto the plane, we were certainly very tired and ready to sleep. We did get some sleep on the plane but were not ready for the day we would have ahead of us when we arrived in Guangzhou.

We arrived early in the morning, caught the bus to the train station and it seemed like things were going to work out just fine. We remembered the craziness of the train station from the stories during last winter's ice storm and were happy there were far fewer then 600,000 people there, but it certainly was very crowded. We got in the back of a line stretching out of the building and trudged our way to the front of the line. It was only 9 am so we had a long time to get our ticket to Wenzhou. One hour went by and most of another and we found ourselves at the front of the line. The lady behind the counter stood up, pulled her curtain closed and left. We had to wait for her to go to break and come back later. I decided to get in another line, not knowing how long Patty would have to wait, and almost made it to the front of my long line before Patty got her chance before the ticket lady. The news was grim...no train tickets to Wenzhou today and only one very late tomorrow night. We said no, even though the wait was over 2 hours. We'll try buses.

We went outside and asked a police officer where the bus station was and a bunch of people came together to work out our problem--finally coming up with the conclusion that there are no buses to Wenzhou today and one tomorrow, but very expensive. Maybe a plane would be better. We headed back to the ticket place, luckily all three are in one convenient place!! There are a couple tickets to Wenzhou that night, but there price was insanely expensive...but if we waited for tomorrow night the price is less than half. The only problem is that means we would only have 3 days with our students followed by a 2 day train ride back to college. What should we do...we called our friends in Wenzhou and then decided upon returning early to college and getting some time to relax (tickets were cheaper too).

The flight was at 10:40 pm though so we had a whole day in Guangzhou. We went to a park, walked around for a long period of time but were just tired and looking forward to getting back home. We decided to go back to the airport and wait there for our flight. We arrived around 6 and took a seat and talked about all of the events of our travels...Patty was still going over and feeling bad about leaving our coats in Ubud, indonesia, besides losing her watch...there is something about her and losing things while traveling (many umbrellas, watches, and hair thingies since). We were ready to sleep, so decided to get our ticket and rest at the gate and that's when it happened. Patty put down her bag to get her travel bag with our tickets, passports, extra money and other valuables in it out and started removing things slowly, followed by her ripping everything out and calling out in disbelief...they're not here!! I was totally lost, because I did not know what she was looking for, and kept her calm as we checked all of our other bags. It then sunk in, our tickets, passport, money, everything was gone...we might be stuck here in Guangzhou forever. I tried to stay calm in the face of Patty's hysteria...maybe we can check with the buses. Maybe someone has found it there and turned it in.

We went back to the bus stop just in time for the next bus to come (every 15 minutes) and Patty rushed onto the bus to the amazement of the women working there. What was she doing?? We tried to explain and the women were like, ahh...you want to get on the bus, buy a ticket over there. No, no, we left our bag on the bus...yes, yes buy a ticket take the bus. All in Chinese. It did not seem like we were getting anywhere, so I decided to go try the lost and found while Patty stayed at the buses. We had a few hours, so this was okay...as long as we find it. At the lost and found, the women listened to my broken Chinese...the bag that we had with money, tickets, and passports we have no more, left on the bus and handed me a phone. The connection was horrible and I could barely hear anything as I tried to explain the story again. So frustrating!!

On Patty's end, she has continued trying to rush onto every arriving bus to search, and finally has given up and has started crying hysterically. The women are trying to console her, "don't cry lady, buy ticket over there." After several more minutes of this, they decide that they need someone who knows more English. A woman comes and explains slowly in English..."it is okay, you can get on the bus after you buy a ticket." Patty frustrated explains the story, my bag was lost on the bus with my ticket, passports and money. This springs her (the bus lady) into hyper-help form and she takes off in her high-heels with Patty chasing behind.

During this time, I am still on the phone ready to hang up on the lady and checking the time on my cell phone and see a clock...the times are not even close. All of the extra time we thought we had, really isn't there. This is getting desperate. I have long since sent messages to friends to keep us in their thoughts and I really want to hang up and do something else, but what... At this time, the lady on the phone says wait and I hear the phone passing hands, I am not going to explain this again, but then I hear Patty's voice. She is crying and trying to talk..."they cannot find the bag, I don't know where I am." As she says these words, she starts screaming. I finally catch a few of the intelligible words, they found it. I cannot believe it, but we do not have time to celebrate. I try to explain where we should meet and the time difference and to hurry, but am sure Patty heard nothing through her screaming and she hangs up. I go to the meeting point and wait, looking at the clock the whole time. We are going to miss the flight and the tickets are not refundable...ahhh!!! So I start walking around the airport looking for Patty, which turns into running and calling her name...I assume most people had no idea what I was saying. Through the crowds of people I finally see Patty's familiar blonde hair and thus starts the next step. Catching our flight.

We ran in circles trying to find the correct check in place for our flight...the sign says they will stop taking luggage 45 minutes before the flight and we are pretty much at that point and there is a small line. We find our way to the front and hand our ticket half expecting her to say sorry but she says how many bags and we put our bags on and get our tickets. Her instruction was to hurry. So much for our planning ahead, and no time to think about the miracle of finding our bag. We rush with our backpack and a couple plastic bags of things to the inspection point. Patty again gets frisked and I wait for her with my bags and we leave towards the gates knowing that we have at least 10 minutes to get there. As we arrived at the Guiyang gate, we let out a sigh and Patty gave me a huge hug, releasing her pent up stress.

Even though it is nearly time for our flight, there is no plane there, but this does not bother us, we are there. I am hungry though and look around for the bag with our food in it. It is nowhere to be found and I look at Patty. Knowing she is already feeling bad, I try to break the mood by saying, I know you did not want to bring my rocks home, but where is our other bag? She is distraught, and beside herself, she is so good at being in charge of those things but this was not her day. I had to run back to the inspection area and get it before our plane arrives...all successfully and we board our plane an hour late. We have called our friends and are looking forward to relaxing at their house upon arrival.

The flight is totally uneventful and we land in Guiyang a little before 1am to find that there are no taxis. We ask several people and they say, meiyou (none). How are we going to get to our friends house, the airport is very far away. We see a bus ready to leave and take off running with our last levels of energy and get there as they are preparing to leave. "We want to go to the college." The inevitable answer is, we do not go there, we go to Qianling Park (nowhere close). We insist over and over again, we need to go to the college and finally they say okay whatever but more expensive. Money has long since been issue in this day of fiascoes. We would pay whatever. It turns out to only be an extra 5 RMB per person (70 cents). It has never felt better to see people we know and to be able to speak in English and to lay down and sleep. What a crazy day...the Fiasco in GuangZhou has ended.

1 Comments:

At 1:17 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Such craziness! I'm glad everything turned out okay!

 

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