Planned surprise

by Inessa Alaverdyan (Armenia)

I didn't expect to find China

What is life if not a series of planned surprises? Four years ago, I set for my first solo travel, which happened to be in one of the most culturally diverse countries: China, or as it has been historically called “The Middle Kingdom”. Since I was about to travel during Chunyun, which is the Lunar New Year rush, I had to outline my journey. So, I planned a trip across the country for 34 days and as I was on a limited budget most of my travels were on slow trains, I even had to take a 35-hour train once, subsequently, I started abhorring long journeys. I had arranged places that had something unique to offer: Harbin, for its marvelous Ice and Snow Sculptural festival and winter activities on the frozen river, Xi’an, for its rich history and genuine Chinese spirit, two of the most breathtaking mountains of China: HuaShan and HuangShan, Hongcun a cultural village on the foot of Huangshan Mountain, Wuhan - currently a world trending city, to meet my old friends and finally Nanjing, to learn about the history of the previous century. To be honest it was a very long journey, though I was lucky enough to meet people who helped me engrave those days in my memory. Some locals took me out for my first bar crawl, someone shared a tandem bike to ride on the city wall in Xian, a Danish girl who was about to leave the nearly empty hostel when I checked-in became a friend who I have occasionally met since then and many more intriguing stories, but most of all I would like to share the story which had an unexpected turn for me. February 11th, 2016, after a month of traveling, my train arrived at Dalian and I cheerfully rushed to the bus stop to catch a ride to our university town, which was 40 minutes away. Finally, I saw a signboard reading the name of our district. Surprisingly, the majority of the passengers looked like ordinary peasants, while usually, most were students. I thought to myself, that it probably was because of the Chinese New year holidays and got on the bus. Thirty minutes through, the bus was still immobile, so I decided to take a nap. It was already past seven when the bus finally moved, I looked out from the window with revere and with the excitement of going back to my second home. In a while, I would be there, but the bus took a different turn. For a second I was quite perplexed, but then I thought to myself, that maybe it’s doing a detour as there are so many locals, it will first go to the district center and then on the way back to the university. Five minutes through and no one got out of the bus, and I suddenly found myself in a place I had never been to. I checked the map and I was shocked, it was about 20km away and what was worse I didn’t know how to deal with the situation. Finally, I got the guts to approach the driver and asked for help, he offered to stop at a place where I could get a taxi. The small blue dot on the map was moving further and further from my initial destination. What was more special that day was the mist surrounding the town and the emptiness due to the Chinese New Year. After about 5 minutes of driving, it stopped and I got out with two other people, one of them approached to offer help. He had overheard on the bus my clumsy story and wanted to help. He went to the cab driver, paid him in advance and told him to take me to university safe and sound. He didn’t ask any questions or say anything, just directed me to the car and wished me good luck. At that moment, I realized that I happened to find all these nice people in places where I didn’t expect to. What was it, if not another planned surprise from above?