A Day in Guizhou, part 2

That's right, quite a cliffhanger. Check out what happened next.

Alex and I decided that if there were still trains running, we might as well ride back to Guiyang that night so we would have all of Saturday free before we had to fly out. The taxi driver dropped us off at the train station and we went in to ask about tickets to Guiyang. The lady said there weren't any, so I went to the bathroom before we left.

Alex called me while I was in the bathroom, though, (that's right; I'm so good at the squatty potty now that I can even answer the phone while going to the bathroom) and told me to hurry up because we might miss our train. When I got out, he said that he asked someone else and they said that even though the train didn't have any tickets left, you could still board the train and hope for standing room.

We took a train on the first night we got to Guizhou, and it was pretty packed, so Alex and I were preparing ourselves to stand amidst tons of sleeping/smoking Chinese people for the hour and a half ride to Guiyang. When the train approached, we and about seventy others all rushed on and found to our delight that the train was practically empty. Alex and I sat next to each other opposite this cute young Chinese couple.

Gradually we started chatting with them. They were from Guiyang but worked somewhere else. They knew all the places to go, though, so they gave us recommendations which hotel to stay at. We talked for the whole ride there, and then when we were getting off the train I think we were supposed to pay for having ridden it, but the guy said something to get Alex and me through. We were feeling pretty good because we had not only found a train to take, but had also found some friendly people to talk to, had a comfortable ride, and didn't have to pay anything. It was only midnight.

The couple told the taxi driver which hotel he was supposed to take us to and off we went.

But as it turns out, the taxi driver didn't know where the hotel was and dropped us off in front of a random hotel. Alex and I didn't know any better, so we paid the guy and got out. When we discovered the hotel was out of our price range, we started off, half looking for a hotel, and half looking for an ATM, since we realized we were both dangerously low on cash.