News (24/8/2010): Thousands of vehicles were bogged down in a more than 100-kilometre (62-mile) traffic jam leading to Beijing that has lasted ten days and highlights China's growing road congestion woes.
Flashback (24/8/2007): Me and my friend Leo started from Pingyao to Beijing. Pingyao is a small city in Shanxi province retaining its city layout from Ming and Qing dynasties, and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Beijing, about 700 Kms from Pingyao, was the final destination of our month long backpacking trip.
We left the travelers' hostel around 2 PM and walked right away to the bus station.We didn't have a chance to have our lunch as we couldn't find any vegetarian restaurant nearby. There was a bus to Beijing around 3 PM. Each ticket cost 150 Yuan and we had money in Chinese Yuan just enough to buy our tickets. We looked around and found that there were no banks or ATMs in that small place. We could only buy two bottles of orange juice with the small change we had. The person who issued the tickets said that the bus will reach Beijing around 9 PM. So, we thought that we can have some dinner once we reach Beijing.
The bus started right on time. Everything went well till we were about 80 Kms from Beijing. Suddenly, the bus stopped and we just found that we are stuck in a traffic jam. There were a lot of vehicles ahead and in no time, there were a lot behind us too. We couldn't really see the starting point of the traffic jam and we didn't know the reason either. The only thing we knew is that we are stuck in the middle of nowhere.
There was no sign of vehicles moving for a long time. We just watched the movies played in the bus, listened to some songs in the MP3 and slept. It was already 9 PM and the bus didn't move an inch. With no money and in the middle of nowhere, we had no choice but to starve.
Finally after some 7 hours, the bus moved slowly. We found that there was a toll gate and of all the 8 lanes, only one lane was open and a guy issuing tickets to the vehicles passing through the only open gate. The bus reached a bus station around 3 AM next day. We jumped down the bus and found that the bus stopped in a bus station out of Beijing and the place was not even in the map. Having no money to hire a taxi, we had only one option - wait for the first bus by 5 AM.
It was my first and only experience until now to sleep in the street. We took the first bus and reached the city center. It took us some time to find the hostel we were planning to stay. It was good that the hostel accepted US Dollars. But, we still had to wait till 9 AM for the bank to open.
It took us time to take a shower and get ready. We walked through the streets near the hostel we stayed and the smell of the food from the street vendors attracted us. But, our pockets were empty and had to wait till we change our US Dollars to Chinese Yuan. We looked into the map and walked towards the nearest bank.
There was already a decent crowd when we reached the bank. We had to wait for an hour or so to get our job done. Oh, with the money in our hands, we wanted to find a decent vegetarian restaurant nearby. We found one in the map and it was not so far from where we were. So, we walked to the place. But, the shop was moved from that place. Too tired to walk around, we took a cab and went back towards the place we stayed. Finally, we found a restaurant across the hostel which served some vegetarian food (Though the restaurant was not completely vegetarian). We had some pasta and some other stuff to finish our one and a half day long starvation.
Altogether, it was a whole new experience and though it was tough that time, it now remains as a memorable experience.
NOTE: Just when I tried to write this down, I found that the date (24/8/2007) of this incident and the date (24/8/2010) the news about the recent traffic jam appeared in the newspaper which made me write this are the same.
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