We got off our big luxury bus in Hangzhou, suspecting we hadn't been offered the cheapest ticket to town. The hostel we would be staying at had helpfully printed directions on the back of the flyer we had but we were still in a bit of uncertainty as we did not know which of the four bus stations in town we were at. A walk around the building did nothing to relieve our uncertainty so we ventured a prod at the phrasebook under the nose of a tourist information assistant. She spoke English - we were saved, but then a familiar run of events ensued. Sometimes, it seems impossible to get a message across, despite a person's apparent understanding of your language and often with the aid of bilingual printed matter. The two us, the lady and our bags took a trek across the bus terminal and into another building where she employed the help of some more colleagues. Books were pulled out, chins were rubbed and foreheads scratched while we stood behind it all having repeated several times that we only needed to know the name of this station so we would know which set of directions to follow.
After nearly ten minutes and several hesitant liftings of a phone to make a call it was decided by committee what we were supposed to do and a hand written note was prepared for us to show to a bus driver. We were then given detailed directions on where to go to get the number 9 bus that would apparently take us to our hostel however the women couldn't agree on the route we should walk. We trotted out as per the instructions of the first woman, never really knowing which bus station we were at and after wandering through a bit of town where we were quite the novelty we found the street with bus number 9 arriving at the same time we did. We had no idea if it was going in the direction we wanted it to or if it would take us directly away from our next home but waving the note at the driver didn't result in an eruption of hysteric laughter so we decided we hadn't done too bad. The driver, who looked like she belonged behind the wheel of a school bus was very jolly and constantly re-assured us everything was okay every time we caught a glimpse of a familiar road name and stepped up for a better analysis. Sure enough we got where we were going and checked into what was definitely an improvement over the last hostel.
Hangzhou is widely considered the most beautiful town in China. Either we were in for an imminent treat or a depressing two months, we took an evening stroll to form our opinion. The description, like so many things in China, was a little overstated but not so much as to be an outright lie. The centre point of town is the West Lake - a large body of water full of legend and myth which neither of us are particularly interested in, but involves a turtle, possibly giving birth to the world. It was certainly a pretty spot and we spent the evening searching for food somewhere around it's shores as the sun set off yonder. We had our second curry in two nights though this time we were treated to the local beer as accompaniment, it's tag line across the label reading "FREE FROM FORMALDEHYDE". I don't know what is more telling; that the beer had that printed on it or that none of the other one's do. Either way, it didn't distract us from our food, that honour went to the girl who couldn't sing for buttons. She belted out the Indian hits, complete with dance routine, glitter ball and outrageously loud p.a system which descended the restaurant into a disco as plenty of disgruntled diners gave up on conversation because it was impossible to hear each other and instead drank their drinks, partly out of awkwardness but mostly to drink them before the glasses shattered.
The following day we circumnavigated the lake, as any visitor to town does. To walk it would take a day so instead we jumped on a glorified golf cart, adapted to carry about a dozen passengers and which warns of it's approach with a warbled electronic tune which sounds like a mobile phone recovering from a dip in the water. The trip round the lake was actually our second adventure of the day as we had once more got up early to discover very few feng-shui'ers and so climbed a traditional pagoda, built circa 1997 to enjoy the view of smoggy mist across the water. Due to our early start we had the brief privilege of being the only people up there and had a very peaceful time, leaving just as the first megaphones arrived.
We were quite the novelty in Hangzhou which was weird because there were plenty of white people in town but it seemed plenty of other people had never seen such a sight before despite this so we endured much pointing and laughing at, and friends turning other friends around to show them us. We smiled back for a while and then I got a bit fed of it all and started to consider them really ignorant but deciding if you can't beat them join them. I then went round pointing and laughing at any white people we saw too - I still don't get it though.
The next day we spent the morning enjoying a little park and then we had to get to the airport for our flight to Xi'an. No rickshaw this time, instead it was the conventional method - a taxi to the train station, to catch a bus.
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