2015 China

27 March, Suzhou
Water Town Hostel 190CNY

A wet day and odd; a day during which we found a rare, spare bed, extended a visa, lost and regained a guide book, lost and regained a credit card, and visited a museum.

When we checked into the Water Town Hostel yesterday we told them we wanted to stay for three nights, but they could accommodate us for only two. We took their two and made enquiries at the inn next door about Saturday night, but they too were full. Today we asked the hostel receptionist to help us find a bed; the four places he called were all fully booked for the weekend, however. He directed us then to another nearby inn, which luckily had a vacancy for Saturday. One problem solved...

We took a taxi then back to the Public Security Bureau (PSB), our police-stamped proof of accommodation forms now added to our other visa-extension-application documentation. The same young woman who had been on duty yesterday attended to us today – friendly, helpful and English-speaking. Having checked our paperwork she went away for awhile to verify and consult, then came back saying our visa extensions have been approved and will be valid until May 10 – giving us a full 60 days in China. It will take seven working days (as today is a Friday and there is a public holiday next week, this effectively means 12 days) to add the visa to our passports. During that time we will travel with a “receipt” issued by the PSB and will have to return to Suzhou from wherever our itinerary has taken us to collect our passports on April 7. Despite this bureaucratic annoyance, we are thrilled...

As we had intended to go from the PSB directly to the Suzhou Museum, I was carrying our Lonely Planet China guide with me. Shortly after we arrived at the PSB I realised I had left it in the taxi. I was devastated. One can cope without a travel guide in many countries, especially where there is good internet connectivity. But in China there is a very real language barrier, much of it overcome by the Chinese translations in the LP guide: place and hotel names and their addresses. Charl then remembered that he had seen the same LP guide on a bookshelf at our hostel. So we taxied there and asked if we could buy their copy. The young man who said we could have it as a gift was somewhat taken aback by my spontaneous response – a giant bear hug.

Then to an ATM to draw cash. An annoyance we have encountered throughout our year-long trip has been the limits set on cash withdrawals by our host countries, in all cases less than the limit imposed by our own bank. As we are charged a fee for each withdrawal, this limit has forced us to draw cash more often than we would have and of course therefore cost additional bank fees. Today, the ATM swallowed Charl’s card. Luckily the bank was open and an official went immediately to retrieve it from the hungry machine. They then wanted Charl’s passport as proof that he was the owner of a card from a South African bank stamped with the name CM Heydenrych. We handed them our PSB receipt, which they took a very long, anxious time to examine before handing over the card.

After all that excitement, we lunched and made our way to the Suzhou Museum, a modern building constructed around a koi pond. Inside, jade and pottery and ivory and wood pieces, some extraordinarily lovely.