The Road To Hell

A few people had told us how good sleeper buses are, but I can't recall exactly who these "people" were; which is good because if I ever catch up with them .....

I never, ever want to travel by sleeper bus again.  We had decided to give this a try as we couldn't book an overnight train and it would mean we could avoid spending the night in Kunming.  We managed to find a travel agent able to book a bus (most are only interested in selling tours around Lijiang) but ended up with almost the worst berths in the bus - a double bed right at the back.  Double is hardly the right word as each bed is only about 40cm wide so you need to lie on your side, put up with the bad ventilation and rough ride and just wait for the ordeal to end as soon as possible.

The toilet on the bus is locked so we stop several times during the night, but still manage to arrive in Kunming at 4:30 am which is a bad time to arrive anywhere let alone Kunming bus station.  Thankfully the driver is happy to let us stay on the bus after we arrive so I finally manage 2 hours sleep before admitting defeat and heading to the airport and hopefully a decent breakfast.