Train to Baise

Took the midday train to Baise to see Tan’s elder sister and other cousins. We were going to take a taxi but I said not to as I don’t trust the roads – especially taxi drivers who are only interested in doing the work as quickly as possible in order to get back and make more money. Anyway, the train is nearly an hour quicker and 10 times cheaper.

What we hadn’t counted on was how crowded it was; hundreds of students coming home from Nanning for the holiday season. October 1st is China’s national day, with October 6th being the moon festival this year – basically meaning the whole country is on holiday for a week. It took 15 minutes before some kid finally let me sit down (I was holding Leilei). Thankfully half way through enough people got off to allow us all to sit down, where Leilei was cooed over by the young female students (lucky git).

The ticket inspectors came (actually they were police), and told us we should have gone to the “comfortable” class car instead of the cheap one. Unfortunately to get there we would have had to pass through another seven cars filled up with people like cattle with all our luggage and a push chair. I said we’d be fine here – at least it was air-conditioned.

Upon arrival at Baise, we were met by Tan’s sister’s friend, who conveniently owns a hotel in the centre. Baise is like a county capital and a couple of times bigger than Pingguo. The people aren’t as nice, and they speak quite a lot of Cantonese there. The hotel owner’s brother-in-law accompanied us on the drive to the hotel. He is an English teacher, or at least claims to be. I couldn’t make out a lot of what he said, possibly down to a strange growth sideways over the front of his other top front teeth, and he understood less of what I had to say. However I did gather that the next day he would be going to Nanning to translate for some South American who was flying over to marry the English teacher’s classmate (maybe he meant colleague). God knows what the South American is going to be told.

Had a small meal at the hotel owner’s before having a shower and going for a walk with Tan’s sister. Half an hour later she disappeared to collect money from the casino she part owns (I gather). Apparently if she didn’t go on time she wouldn’t get the money which sounds strange. Anyway, she didn’t get back within the half hour she said, which made Tan angry, so back at the hotel she decided she wanted to go back that evening. In fact she was adamant, but I wasn’t having any of that and said we were at least staying one night here after that journey.

Then a cousin (I think it was an aunt) turned up at the hotel (they have a habit of doing that) and we soon found ourselves in a taxi looking for a place to eat. Tan was refusing to accept calls from her sister (fractious women can be so babyish). We arrived at a clean looking hotel (in fact it was only a restaurant but many like to call themselves hotels) and ordered our food. Minutes later both women were complaining that the food wasn’t ready. In fact they seemed to be moaning more than was necessary, but this appears to be normal here when in a restaurant – I think it’s just a way of showing off. Anyway, the food came and it was lovely. Then Tan’s sister and her son came and joined us, so there must have been some sort of communication going on.

We moved to a bigger table to accommodate the larger number of people, and the women set about complaining again to the staff (as per most restaurants, mostly female, dressed in lovely traditional green dresses, and far, far more of them than was necessary – I counted seven not including the beer server!). Tan’s sister (yes I’ve forgotten her name) even cancelled an order after it hadn’t arrived in 5 minutes.

Later we went for a walk in the park, which is huge. As it was holiday season there were various attractions for the kiddies. Leilei loved going on the cars – I had to let him go twice as he wouldn’t let me take him out after the first ride. I was with Leilei and Tan’s sister’s son (Qi qi) and the cousin while Tan was out shopping with her sister.

Leilei's favourite word is "car!"


He was only looking moody because he knew I was coming to take him off.


Back at the hotel a few more ladies came to Tan’s sister’s room, which was next to ours. These were friends I think, or maybe cousins, and mainly wanted to see Leilei. That suited me, as I went to the reception and picked up a couple of bottles of beer for 40p (expensive!) and settled down to watch the football which I did till 1am when a fault developed with the satellite and all they had was one shitty film with a pouting actress who looked like the one who played Lara Croft. Could have been worse I suppose.