Kaili, Guizhou

Ahhh Kaili. So green. So mountainous. So in the middle of no where! Our flight was actually delayed for about three hours before we made it to Guiyang. Surprisingly, the airline had us sit on the airplane for those entire three hours. The person next us spoke a little English and told us we were delayed because of some sort of birthday. We have no idea who’s or why we couldn’t take off, but they must have had some reason to delay us. Maybe the candles wouldn’t light or something.


This was one of those times in life where you have two choices on how to react. You can be angry and get all worked up or you can sit and enjoy the peanuts. Our choice was made for us considering the language barrier: sit and enjoy the peanuts. Fortunately, there were plenty of people who chose the get angry option. I was properly satisfied with the level of outrage that my fellow passengers were expressing however I did realize something. Their outrage did nothing! They couldn’t make the plane move. The flight attendants couldn’t make the plane move. The shouting did nothing other than entertaining Ed and I for about an hour.

So back to Kaili. We had done some rough planning ahead of time and when we arrived in the city we knew of a hotel to check out. We just didn’t know exactly where it was. We got a taxi driver to take us to the street it was on, but he didn’t know where it was so he just stopped and let us out (quite common). Ed and I walked up and down that street three times before we decided to stop and call the hotel (to get directions). Of course, the hotel was a Chinese hotel and there was the great possibility that they didn’t speak English: but we were going to call anyways and try to somehow (I don’t really know how) get directions to find the place. We made the call and the lady who answered tried really hard to tell us, in Chinese, where the hotel was. We just weren’t getting it; so she decided to come out and get us. Well after about ten minutes of us saying where we were (the street intersection that we were on) the lady we were talking to said wait (in Chinese). So we hung up and waited. 30 seconds later, she shows up. It turns out the hotel was pretty much right across the street down a small ally. We felt kind of stupid for missing it (three times) but we were happy that they came out and got us. It was actually the start of people being overly kind and helpful to us for the entire trip!

Let me just tell you one more thing about the hotel. It had the softest beds ever! Well the softest beds I’ve ever slept on in China…which is pretty soft. Asians in general seem to think that the harder the bed is the better. We often sleep on beds that are reminiscent of wood planks, concrete slabs, or just plain ol’ floors. So when I fell onto this bed and found that it had some spring, some give, some comfort to it, well I was in second heaven. It was so wonderful, that here I am, four weeks later still wishing I was sleeping on it!