February 03, 2005

Guilin bus station

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This bus station was not nearly as sketchy as most US/Canadian Greyhound bus stations I've been to. Neither was the one in Shenzhen, China (border city to HK) though someone did try to steal my bag from me there, in mid daylight, depsite me being vigilant.
Local buses in China are interesting. In Guilin, public local buses are free to "benefit the people". But to take a local, semi- long distance mini bus are weird- stops are arbitrary, you get pushed into the bus, and smoking is allowed. Still, it only cost me $10 yuan which is like $1.50 USD (and it cost everyone this, not just me the gweilo), to take a local mini bus 80 km and about 1.5 hours from Guilin and Yangshou.

The overnight bus to Guilin from Shenzhen took about 12 hours and was very comfortable- no smoking allowed and it had sleeper cots in the bus which were just my size so I could be comfy. It cost $210 yuan each way (like $21 USD) to go about 800 km. The bus allowed some potty stops which to my surprise were either bus depots in Guangdong (Canton) Province that had squatting toilets or we were let out into a forested area to take a leak in the wilderness, heh.

Posted by Christine at February 3, 2005 08:33 PM