Day 12- “I have a bad feeling about this..”

Joyce and I had a nerve-wracking start to our day. Our new tour guide had texted us to meet outside our hotel at 8. Our bus driver had texted us to meet outside our hotel at 7. We were waiting outside ready to go at 6:50.

Our bus never showed up. Joyce was calling and calling and the tour guide told us that they would pick us up at 8:30. Then, we got a call from the bus driver telling us that he didn’t see us and they were already on the road. We were instructed to get a greyhound bus and ask the driver to drop us off at the infamous jade shop we had spent an hour and half at just days before. The greyhound-like bus driver dropped us off in the middle of nowhere and I just felt my heart drop. I felt we were just being left. Luckily, over the horizon, we could see the tops of buses in a parking lot and dragged all of our stuff over to it where we met up with our bus driver and tour guide who both said it was our fault. Our fellow bus mates told us that they had seen us waiting outside, but the bus driver didn’t want to stop to pick us up! Then, they gave us badges and told us that we needed to go buy some jade. Yeah, right.

When we got back on the bus, the tour guide wouldn’t even let Joyce and I sit next to each other. He sat me right in the front and Joyce at the back of the bus. I was not thinking nice thoughts about the man.

We had a long eight-hour bus drive back to Kunming. Joyce had called the nice head tour agent and she met us at the bus. She forced the bus driver to pay us for the “greyhound” ticket out of his own pocket and she helped Joyce buy a plane ticket back to Beijing. We went back to her friend’s teashop and she paid for our take out dinner. It was a very generous way to end a rather ugly day.

We went back to our hotel and I was able to book a hostel in Shanghai and Joyce showed me pictures of her previous trip to the city.

This concludes my epic trip with Cindy and Joyce. I will be grateful to them always because they were able to help me to see parts of China I no way would have been able to see on my own. I am lucky to have friends like them.