The usual early morning start in darkness. Encouragingly tho’, we actually did set off early this time, rather than sit around for half an hour or so. Gilbert is on his own now – Sullivan left soon after we started yesterday, without having touched the steering-wheel. But apart from his time-consuming side-lines, we’re well-pleased with Gilbert – he keeps us bowling along quite nicely. Which is what we did all day. Quite a pleasant day’s journey, relatively speaking, of course. Our lunch-time stop was in a bleak car park, miles from anywhere, but we whiled away an hour + exercised our bodies with a game of Frisbee.
During the afternoon a more than welcome break at a splendid yogurt place – delicious, especially when we added the last of our honey to it. There were violently strong winds blowing across the desert, + one particularly vicious gust ripped the ventilation hatch from the bus + hurled it away. It was right above our heads, so gave us quite a shock. Even worse, hanging from it was a string bag containing our plums + a bag of sponge, so naturally when the hatch took off, this went too. When we finally managed to appraise Gilbert of the situation + get the bus stopped another man + I walked back to retrieve the hatch. I took the opportunity to look for our sponge + plums too, + to my surprise there they were, still in their plastic bags, + apparently none the worse for their 50 yard flight. I got quite a cheer from everyone in the bus when I returned with my trophies.
We stopped much earlier today, at the same seedy stop at which we’d stopped on the first night out. Complete chaos there, as 3 or 4 buses all pulled in + spilled their passengers at the same time. We weren’t directly affected, because we 3 blancos, plus 2 more off another bus, were all bustled directly into the office. We discovered this privileged treatment had a price, however. On the way out, we had been charged 1.40 each; now we each had to fill out a registration form + pay 2.80. It was a Public Security man who dealt with us, + he was somewhat apologetic, but firm. The room, service, etc, was exactly the same as everyone else got, so it wasn’t much of a deal, just a sign that centralised govt is spreading its tentacles ever wider.
The 5 of us ate together, noodle soup once again in the same café as before. Our new acquaintances were interesting, VSO workers teaching English. I thought of VSO myself a while back, but have now gone off the idea, I think.
The incident with the skylight and our plums etc was quite the highlight of the day; anything to break up the monotony, and for once breaking through the cultural barriers with a story that everyone could share. While our experience with the Public Security man was a less welcome sign that central government is extending its reach. Not a huge increase in price, of course, but then again a 100% increase.
