Eric's Beijing Diary

I'm sitting in the dining car on the train from Beijing to Yichang, reading a book I have been printing off chapter by chapter from the internet.  It's called, "History of the Moravian Church," by J.E. Hutton.  This book is old, but it's an excellent piece of work.  Bulu helped me "learn the ropes" at the train station.  That is, after my argument with the ATM this morning.  I stopped by the ATM in the main building to get some cash.  The machine eagerly swallowed my card, and even gave me a receipt, but absolutely refused to give me the money.   It just made some strange noises, then printed a statement on the screen that said, "This machine is out of order," and shut down.   I called Bulu and reported the situation to him.  The ATM must have heard me--miraculously, the stubborn machine suddenly came to life and spit out my card, but still flatly refused to give me my money.  Unwilling to accept the compromise, I went to the bank with Bulu and reported the crime.  They checked my account; sure enough, the amount had been deducted.   They got some information from me, and told me that the money would be back in my account in a week.  We'll see. I am going to take the train to Yichang, and then board the cruise ship to traverse the Three Gorges area of the Yangtze River.  The cruise runs from Yichang to Chongqing, but there are no youth hostels in Chongqing, so I am going to take the bus to Chengdu, where there are so many youth hostels, it's hard to know which one to pick.  Sometime next week I'm going to work my way to Lijiang, where I was almost three years ago.  Not sure how I'm going to go there, though--the planes from Chengdu to Lijiang are very much in demand, so it's hard to get a ticket.  The train doesn't go to Lijiang, but I can take the train to Panzhihua in southern Sichuan and transfer to a bus.  A much longer ride, but also much cheaper than the plane.    

Labels: Summer 2004