Published on July 12, 2007 in Tibet

Today is the day for us to part from our Hong Kong friends. We woke up and saw a deck of playing cards with a little note on them. We took out our cards and left them for them, and we headed out to the bus station. Our initial plan was to take a bus out to the East – both to save some time and see that part of Tibet. It turns out the bus no longer worked, despite our research saying otherwise (and only W was asking at the counter). While she was asking I called my parents and told them everything was ok. It turns out we decided to take a bus to Cheng-Du, and while the bus was a little sub-standard, we thought we could do it. During the day we went to the post office and bought some groceries, then went online. Finally at 16:00 we got on our bus, what we would soon realize was the bus from hell.

I'll be somewhat brief in describing this event. We boarded the bus on time, but it didn't leave the station. After an hour it didn't leave. After two hours, it didn't leave. Meanwhile, we are stuck in the back of this overheated, exhaust filled dirty bus. W started to get a little grumpy, and while I tried to calm her down, the situation was continuing to get worse. Finally the bus left, but only to go into the parking lot. People were continually arguing outside the bus, although we didn't really know about what. After at least two hours the bus finally left, but before leaving Lhasa stopped again. It turns out some of the people didn't pay to get on the bus, and didn't want to pay the full fare – in other words, they got on but wanted to haggle regardless, which is what was keeping us there.

I told W we could get off after 10 minutes, and sure enough, the bus didn't go anywhere. We picked up our bags and told the driver we were getting off and to give us our money back, which he said he would. We tossed our bags out the window and waited for the manager to come (he was coming anyways to deal with the people who didn't pay). He sorted them out, and when we demanded our money he went ballistic. To make a long story short: we threatened to call the police and report him, and he gave us some of our money back. We next said give it all back or we are reporting you at the bus station, and he said, well, he screamed a bunch as usual. We went to the bus station and the bus people didn't really care, but we finally negotiated a deal with the bus owner to give us most of our money back if we didn't report him – and we had to give him the piece of paper that had his license plate number written down on.

Not like it is that hard to remember: AA 13 18

By 21:00 we were back at the guest house, and by 22:00 we were playing cards. Shortly we fell asleep achieving almost nothing for the day, except now knowing W can stand in the doorway of a bus demanding money from a guy three times the size of her.