Pretty simple I'd say. Nearly a straight shot, approximately 317 km (196 miles).
We had a rough start trying to find the on-ramp entrance to Highway G-56 in Kunming. We walked for maybe an hour and a half before we came to the on-ramp only to realize that it was narrow and incredibly dangerous to try to stand there and get a ride. We had two choices: One, we could continue to walk for, oh, maybe another two hours under the highway until we found a better on-ramp, or two, we could get in a cab and have the driver drop us off in a safer place somewhere on the highway. We opted for the cab which ended up being like 5 yuan (less than one dollar). Now, I know what you're thinking. A cab! That's cheating! Well, we weren't on the highway just yet and plus, would you really want to walk for another 2 hours with the possibility of discovering that the on-ramp you were hoping to find was just as narrow and inconvenient for drivers to stop? I don't think so.
Here's where the cab dropped us off and the adventure began:
Nick G after he saved my favorite hat from being blown over the side of the highway
THANKS G!!!
Masha and Alex in the distance
One thing you should know about the cost of things in China is that there are three prices for nearly everything. By that I mean in the markets and local shops. Here's the breakdown:
Local's price - this is the price for people who live within the community. This is usually the cheapest and fairest price.
Other Chinese people's price - this is the price for people from other parts of China who are visiting or are unfamiliar with the community. This price is a bit higher than the local price, but not exorbitant.
The Foreigner's price - this is the price for, you guessed it, foreigners. This means anyone clearly not from China. Generally, foreigners stick out like white drops of paint on a black wall, but if one has a decent command of the Mandarin language and has any, and I mean any at all, resemblance to a Chinese person, it's not difficult to convince someone that you are from another part of China. For example, I used to convince taxi drivers in Xuzhou that I was from Xinjiang Province. This worked because of my curly, brown hair and my basic command of Mandarin. It was totally unnecessary to do this of course, but it was fun. But I digress. The price for foreigners is typically twice or three times the actual, fair price for something. This is why one should sharpen his or her haggling skills before traveling to China. If you don't know how to haggle before you go to China, don't worry, you'll get plenty of opportunities to practice.
Moving on. Well, sort of. We soon discovered that this price bracket also applies to hitchhiking as well. This was our first, potential ride:
Alex working his Mandarin speaking skills
This guy wanted us to pay him 3000 yuan ($470 USD) to take us all the way to Dali. HA! (Just for reference, the average salary of a working person in China is anywhere from 2000 yuan to 5000 yuan. Also, a bus ticket would have cost us maybe 80 yuan each.) He was probably expecting to encounter some more desperate, weary travelers that he could take advantage of and, due to the fact that he had a van that would take all of us the whole way, probably thought that we would accept his offer at any price. Little did he know, we weren't the type to be fooled so easily. Our feelings were no mystery to the man and his preposterous offer and he was on his way just as quickly as he stopped.
Our first ride was with a man who also drove a van with enough space for all. He appeared to have some prior knowledge of hitchhiking as he offered to take us down the road to a place that was better suited for catching a ride. He only asked that we pay him 25 yuan (about $4 USD) for some extra gas money. All right, so we did spend some money. It was a fair deal though. This is where he dropped us off:
An underpass just before a toll booth
(Nick G and Alex off in the distance)
Masha trying to wave a car down
We were not separated for the sake of the photo above but rather because we decided that, although we got lucky with one ride in a van, it was better to split 2 and 2 so that we could increase our chances of being picked up. We agreed that if one group gets picked up, we'll ask if the other two can join. If not, we'd rendezvous in Dali. (HH Tip: You should always be clear and straight forward with everyone who stops for you. Tell them where you are going and how many people you are with. You don't want to freak anyone out by inviting more people to join the ride without the driver's previous knowledge. This is an act of simple respect and courtesy which goes a long way.)
A few cars stopped for us near that toll booth, however, most of the people were just wondering what we were doing there. They would stop and ask where we were going and why we didn't buy bus tickets. We explained to them that we were hitchhiking (搭便车 da bian che) and when their curiosity was satisfied, they would explain that they were only going a short distance so it wouldn't be convenient to take us. (Now, when hitchhiking usually any distance is okay, but we didn't push the matter as we still had plenty of daylight and there was still a chance for all of us to get a ride together.) I thought about the people who stopped just to ask what we were doing. In the States, we see hitchhikers often and people would almost never stop unless they were going to give someone a ride. (Or unless they wanted to play a cruel joke by stopping, waiting until the traveler got close to the car, and then speeding away. Dicks.) I began to wonder if hitchhiking was such rare thing to see people doing in China and that's why people thought it was so dangerous (people are usually of afraid of things they don't understand) or vice versa. Nah, it couldn't be that dangerous, I thought.
About half an hour of waiting near the underpass went by until a middle-aged woman stopped for Masha and I. She, like our friend before, also drove an empty van with no other passengers. We gave her the rundown of our situation and she kindly agreed to take the four of us to a city called Anning which would bring us 35 km closer to our destination. She was very kind and understanding, but also concerned. When we began talking about our plan, she explained that she was going to call one of her friends to see if he could meet us in Anning and take us the rest of the way to Dali. So, there was a total stranger who picked up 4 total strangers calling a friend to take those 4 total strangers on a long distance car ride across the province. We would have greatly appreciated the ride however, twenty minutes or so later, she eventually told us that her friend would not be going to Dali that day. We didn't think much of it until, in a clear, concerned tone of voice, she offered to take us to the bus station in Anning so that we could just buy bus tickets. We explained to her that our purpose was to get to Dali by hitchhiking and not by any other means. She said that it will be difficult to get rides. In fact, she was saying the same things as everyone else had been telling us, yet here we were, sitting in her van while she gave us a ride to the next town! It was almost as if she didn't realize how we came to be standing near the underpass where she picked us up. Maybe she knew something we didn't. Or maybe she thought she was the only person she knew that would pick up 4 hitchhikers. So, we asked her why we should discontinue our journey and she said because China isn't like our home countries and that we will not be able to get a ride any further. She had made one good point, China is hardly at all like our home countries. However, her reasons for us not to continue on were the same reasons we had heard from most people. In fact, they were of the same type you would hear from anyone who was afraid to do what you are doing. These warnings sounded more like the projections of personal fear than they did rational thought. The woman was very kind to us though and I feel happy to have met a person who was so concerned about a group of total strangers.
We got to the off-ramp that lead to Anning and, after declining a few more of her offers to take us to the bus station, got out of the van and prepared for our next length of road:
Group photo next to the exclamation point sign.
We decided to walk down the road from the off-ramp to a more spacious shoulder on the highway. We weren't having much luck there however. We had all ready been waiting in Anning for about an hour and the sun's position in the sky was telling us that it would soon be much darker and much colder. A few vans stopped, but no commitments were made. Nicky G and I were together this time. We chewed sunflower seeds and made ridiculous jokes. Later we talked about our fathers and if they had ever attempted something like what we were doing. Then we talked about women, of course, and soon enough, we reverted back to ridiculous jokes. The sunflower seeds were almost gone and we began to discuss a time that we would call this journey off. After all, we didn't have sleeping bags or tents and we weren't prepared for a night sleeping outside. Plus, there was no where to camp even if we had been. We decided that dusk would be the time to buy a bus ticket. I began to wonder if I was wrong about what the woman who dropped us off here had told us. It wouldn't be the first time I was wrong about something, but then again, it wasn't like we were helpless if we didn't get a ride.
Another half an hour or so of jokes and a van (another van!) stopped for Nick and I. The driver was a young man, probably about 22 or so. I explained our situation and without hesitation he offered to take us the entire way. He got out opened the back hatch and helped us put our bags inside. I asked him if it was all right if our two friends came along and he nodded his head as if to say, "Of course dude, I thought they were coming anyway." So, with our bags piled in and our bodies piled in, we began the journey from Anning to Dali.
It was a comfortable ride. The van was empty, so there was plenty of room to stretch out. I remembered that I had bought a pack of cigarettes for just this type of occasion, but before I could pull them out and offer one, our driver all ready had one in his hand waiting for each one of us. I took the cigarette and waited for my next opportunity to offer one up. (In fact, I don't even smoke that much so I actually intended to offer him the entire pack once we got safely to our destination.) As we drove, we learned that his job required him to drive back and forth from Dali to Kunming and that most of the time he makes this drive on his own. (No wonder he was so willing to pick us up. The man wanted some company!) For the duration of the ride, he called me, Alex and Nick by a name I had never heard before, Xiong Di （兄弟）,which means brother or male cousin. For women, it is Xiong Mei（兄妹） , meaning sister or female cousin. This is how we addressed each other for the rest of the trip.
I was satisfied in the moments after I was able to offer our new, distant relative cigarettes. As if I were telling him over and over again how much we appreciated his kindness. After offering out nearly a quarter of my pack, I became inundated in the scenery outside the van. Gazing out the window, I was captivated as the landscape transformed every few minutes and giant cumulus clouds took on shapes of turtles and dragons in the sky. Colors blended together and darkened in hue as we chased the sun West to a new city. Overcome with solemn satisfaction, and reassured that all was well in that moment and in life, I dozed off.
I woke up as the van pulled into a gas station. Looking around at everyone, I realized that we had all dozed off and were all awoken by the change in momentum. Our Xiong Di had all ready paid for the gas he was going to pump and was walking out of the station with two handfuls of individual sized bottles of water. He gave us each a bottle, pumped the tank full and we were on our way again in less than twenty minutes.
It wasn't long before we arrived outside of Dali. We pulled into a truck stop off the main highway. Our driver, our brother, paid a toll and continued on a short way until we reached another highway where he stopped the van and got out. We all got out to look around and to assess our situation. Xiong Di told us that he actually lived in a small town outside of Dali, but would take us into the city if we wanted. We still had some daylight left, so we decided to catch another ride instead of troubling our brother to go out of his way. Just then, another van pulled up and a man, who looked about the same age as Xiong Di, got out and walked over to us holding two handfuls of raw sugar canes. Xiong Di explained that this was his brother (no surprise there) as he handed one cane to each of us. I pulled out a 50 yuan bill and the pack of cigarettes and handed them to him. He looked at me almost in shock. He accepted the gifts without even a friendly dispute, but I could tell by his expression that he was not expecting them. We chewed the canes on the side of the highway for a good twenty minutes before deciding to part ways:
And of course, we had to get a group photo:
Left to right: Xiong Di, Alex, me, Masha, Nick
We left Xiong Di and his brother with a smile and a handshake. (I would have given him a hug, but Chinese people are not big on the hugging strangers thing. In fact, even handshakes are a bit awkward for most Chinese people.) And there we were again, four friends and four total strangers, out on the road with thumbs out and spirits up. A bus stopped just as we walked onto the highway which led to Dali. The driver said it was 10 yuan each person to Dali. Without hesitation, Nick yelled, "tai gui le!" (too expensive!). We exploded into laughter as did the rest of the bus including the driver. The driver then immediately dropped the price to 5 yuan. We looked at each other and, realizing that daylight had nearly disappeared, decided to jump aboard. We finished chewing our canes on the bus, assured of our final ride into the city and into a new adventure.
