Because we are crazy, we decided to go from Fenghuang to Hong Kong in a single day. A précis:

• 0720: depart deserted guest house and walk through deserted streets to the spot by the bridge on the side of the road where allegedly someone will pick us up.
• 0728: start to panic when no car has appeared
• 0732: get into car and mentally apologize for doubting the guest house staff.
• 0749: arrive at bus station, having miraculously survived perilous drive
• 0753: board bus to Changsha
• 0759: bus departs Fenghuang bus station. Wonder if the intermittent high-pitched beeping sound will persist all the way to Changsha (with a few brief reprieves, it more or less does).
• 0830: eat an orange and some crackers by way of breakfast
• 1308: arrive at Changsha West bus station
• 1315: eschew bank machine (fatal blunder) and grab a taxi to Changsha South train station
• 1350: arrive at Changsha and enter queue to buy train tickets
• 1420: get to front of queue and learn that first train with available seats is in three hours time
• 1430: realize that none of the station’s ATMs will work with our Canadian bank cards. And that, having paid for train tickets, we have something approximating $12 Canadian to get us to Hong Kong. And we haven’t, you know, eaten a real meal yet today (see 0830).
• 1445: spend half of our remaining RMB on Big Mac meals.
• 1715: board high speed train to Shenzhen.
• 2040: arrive Shenzhen train station.
• 2055: celebrate having enough Chinese currency to pay the subway fare to the border crossing.
• 2056: realize that our bills are the wrong denomination to work in the ticket machines
• 2100: find convenience store to change bills
• 2110: board subway to Futian Crossing with Hong Kong
• 2130: arrive at border between China and Hong Kong
• 2140: clear China exit immigration
• 2150: clear Hong Kong entry immigration
• 2155: realize that none of the station’s ATMs will work with our Canadian bank cards
• 2200: change enough of our remaining Japanese money at extortionate rates at bureau de change to get subway to Kowloon
• 2230: get off subway at Tsim Sha Tsui station
• 2240: arrive in lobby of the Sheraton
• 2245: somehow avoid bursting into tears when desk clerk advises that only smoking rooms are available
• 2255: thank desk clerk profusely when she manages to find us a non-smoking room after all
• 2300: arrive in hotel room

And I will just add that I have never been as happy about colonialism as when I was able to order a full English breakfast from room service in the middle of the night.