Let the Adventure End

Dawn on Tuesday morning advanced slowly against the wispy sea smoke. A lone sentry dressed in green camouflage was on duty just below our hotel window, peering out into the cold wind coming off the harbor. We waited until seven o’clock to descend to the lobby where we had been told there would be a complimentary breakfast. A small tray on a side table held a bag with several breakfast sandwiches and an equal number of plastic cups with a warm, milky liquid inside. My guess is that the number of the drinks and sandwiches corresponded to the number of guests hosted the night before.

As it approached 9:30 AM, I told Nanette that I was going to take a walk to the port authority to see what information I could gather about the status of the ferry to Mawei. The departure hall was dark, but a cleaning person could make it clear that there was no ferry that day. When I asked if anyone spoke English, she exited through a side door and up a flight of stairs, returning with two security officials. They informed me that the ferry was not scheduled to run for six more days- a whole week between runs. This was not at all what I was hoping to hear.

Many times when I was having “difficult” day, I would recall stories I had heard from peers who served in Vietnam: trudging through steamy jungles with no changes of clothing, sometimes for several days. Often I would cheer myself with this maxim: “Any day with clean socks and underwear is a good day.” Thankfully, in all of my married life [and largely due to the diligence of my spouse keeping up with our laundry over several flights of stairs] I had never had a bad day- until now. I have, in the past, improvised a clothesline in a motel room or dried my socks with a hair dryer after washing them out in the sink. I learned very early on to tuck a spare set of clothes in my carry –on luggage whenever I traveled, recognizing the real possibility of a forced separation from my luggage by illiterate baggage carriers.

The thought of a full week of successive bad days was intolerable, so I began to implore the officials for some help exploring our alternatives. They agreed to make some calls to the tourism bureau. After about an hour and a half, one of the officials said that a travel agency had said they could accept my American-issued VISA. There was a flight from the Matsu airport to Taipei at 12:10. From there we could fly to Jinmen, and catch a shuttle bus to the ferry serving Xiamen on the mainland. I knew I could retrieve some additional cash from an ATM once we were back on terra firma, and I knew the bullet train to Fuzhou was both fast and inexpensive. I had to decide on the spot due to the time: did I want to fly to Taipei in 45 minutes?

Not having anything to pack, I readily said yes. They whisked me back to the hotel where I bounded up the four flights and announced to Nanette that we were leaving. Now. We offered a quick explanation to Charlene, then rushed to the waiting van. We showed our passports at the single check-in counter at the airport, got our tickets, and waited about 20 minutes for the turbo-prop to Taipei to load. At 1 o’clock, we were looking for the Mandarin Airlines counter in Taiwan’s capital city where we would finalize arrangements as far as Xiamen. An agent for the travel service approached us with an envelope containing our tickets. [I suppose the fact that we were the only westerners within sight was his clue he had found the right targets in the crowded terminal.]

The flight to Jinmen was a little turbulent, but nothing compared to the pitch and roll of the ferry to Matsu the day before. A young woman in an airline uniform asked for our passports, then walked away. This always makes us nervous, because one of the first rules of international travel is this: Don’t get separated from your passport. I noticed that she had collected and bundled several passports, so felt a little more at ease. At the same time, I kept my eye on her parcel as she headed out an exit to one of the waiting shuttle buses and handed the driver the package.

The bus headed down narrow, scenic roads which became more and more rural. Homes were spread apart, and the fields were plowed by men walking behind water buffaloes. The port was a small concrete and glass fortress cemented to the jetty that faced the mainland. The bus driver handed the passport parcel out his window to a waiting official, whom we scurried to follow into the nearby building. Inside there were 2-3 separate stations for the several ferries which embarked from here regularly- far more regularly than Matsu- and our passports were carried to one of these. Keeping one eye on our passports, we small-talked with an English-speaking official who was near the same counter. When he learned that we had not eaten since our 7 AM breakfast – and it was now about 2:30 PM- he handed us 2 boxes containing a standard issue Asian airline snack: a small container of water and a piece of cake. It was all we had time for anyway, even if there had been access to another resource.

Departing on time, surprisingly, we nevertheless sat in the harbor for a good 15 minutes before getting under way at a modest pace through the gray chop toward the mainland. 40 minutes later, we were waiting our turn in line at the customs entrance. Being the only Americans, the whole boatload of Asians was processed before we made it through. We cared very little about this extra attention, however: we were nearing home. A driver offered to give us a ride. He was able catch that we needed to visit an ATM first, and showed us a machine in the lobby close by. He had to consult with a buddy by phone in order to understand what we meant by “train station”. Thirty minutes of congested downtown traffic later, we were wearily climbing out of the back seat of his vehicle and heading for a ticket line at the train station.

We readily agreed that we would prefer not to go any further that day. Across the street, a KFC and several other tempting eateries beckoned to our grumbling gastric machinery. The Ibis Hotel down the street offered the promise of a good night’s sleep, which we would accept at any price at this point. But man that I am, I felt the need to complete the business at the train station first. Lacking the rudimentary language needed to ask all the right questions, I left the window a few minutes later bearing 2 tickets to Fuzhou. They were not open tickets, as I had thought, but specific seats on a bullet train leaving in less than 15 minutes.

We scurried around a corner and up a flight of stairs, trying to get oriented in a building modeled after an octopus. We located the car by number, then our seats in one neat compartment already filled with 6 other people. Noticing a fellow passenger with a styrofoam plate of food, I headed forward to look for the dining car. Rice with chicken for two for the price of McDonald’s: not bad, but I won’t be writing for the recipe. The LED sign above the door in the passageway said we were traveling at 249 kilometers per hour, and the outside temperature was 20 degrees C. I began to feel hopeful that we could make Shadi Village before midnight.

We rolled into Fuzhou Station a little after 9 PM, a little too late to catch the last #55 bus to our neighborhood. We found an empty taxi and negotiated a price to Shangjie, undoubtedly about twice the price for a metered ride but still only $12 USD for a 25 km ride. For some reason, the driver was less than enthused about the narrow winding streets of our village, but we encouraged him on to our gate before the stroke of 10 o’clock.

Ten Tired Turtles on a Tuttle-tuttle Tree never fell into bed with greater tenuity. Home at last. The travel adventure has ended, and we will have another 90 days of everyday adventure at Hidden Treasures Home.