I have broken a pledge, and now I must bear the consequences. I had promised myself never to ride an inter-city sleeper bus in China, but here I am lounging in my berth on the sleeper express from Jiayuguan to Lanzhou, a journey of about 750 km. I have mixed estimates of how long I will occupy this berth. A hotel clerk said ten hours, the Lonely Planet says twelve, but the bus ticket clerk said twenty. Our craft is fitted out with eighteen berths, in three rows from front to back, two tiers. Each is shaped like a chaise lounge, wide enough for a toddler and long enough for a middle school student, provided her height doesn’t exceed a meter and a half. One’s feet occupy the hollow space beneath the headrest of the berth just forward. It’s unclear to me how this configuration is profitable, with so few passengers.

We leave the bus terminal at 2:30 in the afternoon, and navigate through traffic for about thirty minutes; a passenger disembarks to help guide the tall ship through a squatty underpass. We pull into the parking lot of a truck stop in the suburbs. Passengers buy snacks from a street vendor. I pay one yuan to use the toilet inside the storefront of an enterprising woman who has cots for rent by the hour, a shower, the single toilet. I don’t realize that this will be the last time I use a toilet for the next seventeen hours. I also don’t realize that our driver is probably napping on one of the rental cots, and that we won’t leave the truck stop for two hours. Finally we set out again, only to stop for gas a few minutes later. In the next few hours we make frequent stops to take on additional passengers. It’s common for any inter-city bus to pick up anyone who hails it. Drivers and conductors prefer this practice, because they can pocket the fares paid by these non-ticketed riders. Travelers also like it because the fare is open to bargaining.

I try to settle my bulky adult body in my child-size bunk. The quilt smells like dill pickles. No, wait, it’s feet. It smells like feet. An action film, the staple entertainment on Chinese buses, is playing on the three TV monitors, its soundtrack blasting. Cigarette smoke fills the unventilated cabin. When we set out, I tried to discourage the young men who surround me from smoking on board, but the response was raucous laughter over my poor Chinese and my preposterous request. It’s cold and rainy outside, and the windows are obscured by the condensed, trapped respiration of our randomly-assembled group. There is an expressway connecting Jiayuguan and Lanzhou, but we don’t use it. We’re still trolling for new passengers. The shock absorbers on our ship absorbed their last shock many thousands of kilometers ago.

Shortly after nightfall we stop in the lot of a gas station that’s closed. Male passengers urinate nearby in the steadily-falling rain; the women scurry off into the obscurity to squat. I make the unfortunate decision to stay on board. The journey continues, and we make frequent detours, circling areas where new passengers may be waiting, but they are fewer and farther between. The bus threads its way through unbarricaded road construction sites, its frame groaning with every bump and pit. At eleven we stop at a roadside café surrounded by heavy equipment. The lot is unpaved, a quagmire. I slog into the café and ask for the toilet, but I’m told to go behind the building. There in the darkness lurks a guard dog whose bellow sends me scurrying back; I try to circle behind a bulldozer, but the mud is too deep and my socks are now soaked. When I retreat to the bus, the conductor tells me to go and eat in the café. I insist that I’m not hungry. She sends her teenaged daughter, who has enough English to point at the café and say, "Eat! Eat!" Impatient now, I snap in Chinese that I don’t want food, I want a toilet. My outburst brings gales of laughter from the conductor as I peel off my socks and climb back in the berth. Everyone gone inside, the bus lights extinguished, I now think I can slip outside and simply squat beside the bus. But alas, I’m locked inside.

After supper the stops are less frequent, but still we avoid the expressway. This must be the toll-saver tour. Trees glide past my window like ghosts, illuminated for a moment by our headlights. The movies end at last, the smokers doze off, I drowse. Just after six in the morning, still in darkness, we reach the western suburbs of Lanzhou and begin frequent stops until, at the end of the line, I disembark at the Eastern Bus Station, shoulder my backpack and hail a taxi.

This bus ride was the least pleasant segment of my otherwise lovely National Day vacation. With Amity friends Stella and David, I traveled to Dunhuang in northwest Gansu, where we visited the Mogao Caves, Singing Sands Mountains (we didn’t hear any music, but we did smell lots of camel dung) and the Crescent Moon Lake oasis. On impulse we stopped in Jiayuguan on the way back, in order to visit the July 1st Glacier. Unfortunately, that day trip proved too expensive for us. We did see the Weijin Tombs near Jiayuguan, and they are fascinating. Check out my photos at Picasaweb. (Sorry, cameras are not permitted in the ancient sites.) Finally, we were faced with the choice of hanging around Jiayuguan for one or more additional days to try to get train tickets, or taking the bus. In China there are no round trip tickets. (When Stella and I looked into expensive guided tours to Dunhuang, we discovered that even the travel agencies don’t offer return tickets.) Plus, there are three national holidays each year in China, this being one, and they are the only time off that most people experience – including me. Chaos. We chose the bus; the rest is history.