Twas the Night of Bad Smells

Last night was the most interesting night that I have had in my entire life, no joke. Our team decided to take a night train to spend a couple of days in Inner Mongolia. Let’s start yesterday afternoon when we went to the bus station and I had to carry all my luggage to the station only to check it at the station so I didn’t have to carry it all around in Inner Mongolia. Then we had dinner and proceeded to get onto the bus that would take us to Inner Mongolia, which is about a ten-hour drive. When we stepped onto the bus, there were people already in our designated seats. Tracey, our translator, told someone in charge and only some of them moved but the families stayed and that was fine with us. Okay, so the bus was super hot, crowded, and smelly! This is for Josh -- my farts wouldn’t be able to penetrate the smell of this bus (I know!). After I had found my bed (it was a bed bus), I climbed in and quickly found that I would not be able to fit. Luckily, I was able to drape my legs over the side and thought that I would be able to sleep comfortably that way. We then started our journey and took a surprise detour to pick up some unexpected passengers and cargo (very sketch). The extra passengers slept right below me so I had to put my legs back into the uncomfortable amount of space I was given. After about two hours of driving, we took another unexpected restroom stop, or so we thought. First, we went outside where it was almost pitch black and walked to some dirty bathrooms. If you guys didn’t already know, bathrooms in China are basically holes in the ground. This bathroom looked like they had just dug the holes and it already had piles of poop in it. There was a wall that had pee stains on it so I figured that was where I should do my business. This stop smelled worst than the bus did and we couldn’t wait to get back on. However, we were told that our driver decided that he was going to eat dinner so we waited another 45 minutes before we got back onto the bus. Our team decided that we were in a ghost town since there were dogs howling all around us and we saw cats that were there one second and gone the next. After our driver finished his meal, we scampered back onto the bus and fell asleep on our dirty beds. It was probably the worst night of sleep I have ever had since the driver thought it was appropriate to honk at every car around him and then jerk the bus to avoid hitting cars. When we finally arrived to our destination, it was only 4 a.m. so we stayed on the bus till 6 a.m. Since we were in the city, there was nonstop honking and people yelling at each other at 4:30 a.m. in the morning. Plus, the guy next to me snored louder than my dad and Snorlax combined. When it was finally time to escape our bus confines, we walked off the bus and into a crowd of competitive taxi drivers. They all offered us lower and lower prices and we picked the best one but then the drivers started yelling at each other and some of them started fighting. Tracey told us to get into some taxis and so we did and we escaped the scene quickly. Now, I am at the hotel and am so glad that I was able to shower and clean myself after that bus ride. I don’t know if I can top your night in the clothing donations bin Chris but I feel this was close.

Smelling better,

Michael