And not much more to report for today. Val squirmed out from her hole at an early hour, + we spent most of the remaining hours of daylight wedged into our seats. Only very slowly did the train begin to empty, + never to a very great level. We couldn’t even have the usual respite of the stroll along the train to the dining-car. With so many aboard, we had to be content with boxed meals brought around, rice with a small amount of meat. The food wasn’t bad – it was the exercise + change of scenery we missed.
At 6 o’clock, we pulled into Canton station. Val had got chatting with a group of HKers, + finding out that they were travelling on to HK tomorrow, as we hoped to do, we tagged along with them to buy the tickets. They were very kind, + even bought the tickets for us – we gave them the money – for tomorrow afternoon’s train, the first one available. Then we bid them farewell, + set off on the bus to the hostel – it was such a relief to be back in a town where we knew our way around. Spotted a couple of other travellers, + if they hadn’t been climbing into a taxi, I’d have taken them under our wing, since I’m sure they were heading to the same place. (They were – we saw them arriving… half an hour after we got there!)
There was no trouble booking into the hostel, but we discovered that the price had gone up by 50%, the justification being that the dorm now had bunk beds + air con. Not that the latter was doing any good at all, as when we arrived there was no electricity, so no lights, no air con, + worst of all no water, which relied on an electric pump. This was a real blow, for we were absolutely filthy, but it was promised for a little later, so we went out for a stroll. We soon split up, Val to go looking round the shops, me to tuck into a huge plate of noodles at a street stall. The lights + power came on soon after our return, precipitating a mad rush for the showers. Luckily, not many others seemed to know about the ones upstairs, so we got first bite.
Afterwards, being restless, I joined in on the fringe of a conversation raging in small groups between those coming in + those on their way pout. Exactly the same questions were being asked, I was amused to note, as those we ourselves had posed anxiously two and a half months ago. One longed to say look, stop worrying, there’ll be all sorts of problems, but you’ll be able to handle them when the time comes, but of course that wouldn’t help – we would have scorned such non-informational advice ourselves. I spent the final part of the evening both reassuring + ogling a young English girl wearing nothing but a sarong.
Interesting to have a sort of time tunnel, viewing ourselves, a couple of months before, with the same anxieties and concerns that the newcomers are exhibiting. But pleased enough that all of that is now behind us.
