On my flight to Kunming, I was a bit spaced and barely spoke a word to my seatmates.\u00a0 I was desperately trying to catch some sleep, fearful of spending the night in the airport as it looked ever more unlikely that the airline would comp me a transit hotel.\u00a0 As we taxied seemingly forever on the runways of Kunming, I chatted briefly with the two women.\u00a0 They were very nice and mentioned they too had a 13 hour layover; they had just gotten off a flight from JFK to Shanghai which I think may be the longest haul currently offered by airlines.\u00a0 They were much more coherent than I.\u00a0 I mentioned I was headed for Myanmar and I could tell they too were a little unsure if that was a good thing or not; they were headed to Laos.\u00a0 We wished each other well on the layover and discussed options for the airport.\u00a0 One had heard of a hotel nearby that was something like $20-30 bucks for the night and I was awfully tempted.<\/p>\n The plane landed somewhere around 1 AM local time and then it was yet another shuttle bus to the terminal.\u00a0 A man who had been sitting in front of me tripped on the stairs leading down to the tarmac and to the buses but he seemed ok.\u00a0 It makes me a bad person that I was glad it wasn\u2019t me.\u00a0 My bruised tailbone though cried out in sympathy so there\u2019s that.\u00a0 Still, I\u2019m a bad person.<\/p>\n In the terminal proper, despite a variety of planes arriving en masse the airport was closed.\u00a0 Supposedly they would reopen at 5 AM and strewn about the cavernous bird\u2019s nest style building were people stretched out on mats or newspapers trying to catch some sleep.\u00a0 The droning dual language PA announcements saying the airport was closed on level 3 but there was a rest area on level 2 didn\u2019t seem to faze anyone though I knew it would be a long night for me.\u00a0 Stumbling down from level 3 to level 2, I bumped into my seatmates and we formed a fellowship of weary travelers.\u00a0 We actually said we should\u2019ve done this on the plane as there\u2019s strength and mental capacity in numbers\u2026 and I needed all the help I could get.<\/p>\n I had tried three information booths to ask about hotels but I suspect for the Chinese I might as well have been speaking in crayons.\u00a0 Fortunately, as I and Tara and Illana (I’m probably butchering the spelling) from Columbus, OH, were trying to decide on our net course of action, a woman approached us with a cell phone and a business card profferring a nearby hotel.\u00a0 She dialed the front desk where someone spoke at least some English and we were able to ascertain that it would be 200 yen for the night and a shuttle for \u201cno money.\u201d\u00a0 Thirty bucks for a couple hours sleep and a hot shower?\u00a0 That seemed entirely reasonable.<\/p>\n Besides, there were three of us, allowing us to watch out for each other.\u00a0 The first shuttle bus had but one seat and another person wanted us to put all three of our bags in.\u00a0 We stood firm, not wanting to separate ourselves from our luggage and not wanting to break up the newly formed alliance.\u00a0 Another shuttle bus would come in 10 minutes to take us.<\/p>\n I have to say, I\u2019m incredibly lucky to have bumped into these women.\u00a0 I probably would\u2019ve tried to struggle through the night in the airport and because I didn\u2019t have my boarding pass yet would have had to kill time outside security until 11 AM to be able to check in with East China Airways.\u00a0 By paying for the hotel, I could grab a few z\u2019s and wash some of the travel off of me.<\/p>\n Go Buckeyes, indeed.<\/p>\n The shuttle ride to the hotel proved to be something out of a fish out of water comedy.\u00a0 The driver took a phone call just as we were leaving and I don\u2019t know if he had a bad connection or if he just ALWAYS TALKS LIKE THIS but he shouted syllables here and there into the phone.\u00a0 At first I thought he was yelling at us but then he took the phone and tapped some Chinese characters into a translation app.\u00a0 He showed it to Illana who read to us, \u201cWait one moment.\u00a0 Someone else is coming who knows your mom.\u201d\u00a0 We took that to mean we were stopping to pick up another passenger.<\/p>\n At the hotel proper, we checked in.\u00a0 They didn\u2019t take credit cards\u2026 or didn\u2019t want to\u2026 and none of us had any yen.\u00a0 The desk would take US Dollars and there was a bit of haggling over room prices.\u00a0 Again, the Ohioians backstopped me and we held firm to the conversion of 200 yen to USD$30 and not the quoted $35 the guy wanted.\u00a0 It was about 2 AM by the time all the paperwork was done (the desk took photos of our passports and visa on his phone\u2026 a practice I vaguely recall from my Great Wall trip a few years back).\u00a0 We said we wanted to take the 10 AM shuttle back to the airport to make sure we didn\u2019t run into any problems checking in for our flights.\u00a0 The night manager said he\u2019d call us at 9:30 AM to make sure we were ready.<\/p>\n My room was 8213 and the ladies had 8307.\u00a0 I thought that meant we were on the 8th<\/sup> floor.\u00a0 In reality, \u201c8\u201d being a lucky number in Chinese culture, ALL the rooms started with that number.\u00a0 I was actually on the 2nd<\/sup> floor (China \u2013 where 8213 actually means 213… wait… is 13 lucky in Chinese?) and they were on the third floor.\u00a0 I thanked the women for their help and assistance and we wished each other a good night, promising to meet back up in the morning.\u00a0 The fellowship would not be broken.<\/p>\n Despite a massive time difference (I think it was 10 AM back in Los Angeles), I eventually was able to drift off to sleep for a few hours.\u00a0 Every so often, I\u2019d hear a pounding and some grumbling Chinese in the hallway.\u00a0 Only later did it dawn on me that this was the night manager \u201ccalling\u201d the rooms a half hour before a shuttle time.\u00a0 So I was second hand \u201ccalled\u201d three or four times throughout the night\u2026 or morning\u2026 or whenever the hell it was.<\/p>\n Thirty dollars US buys you a room with a view:<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n It\u2019s 10 AM and I\u2019m heading back to the airport with my new friends from Kunming by way of Ohio.<\/p>\n We grabbed breakfast as our respective ticket counters weren’t open yet when we arrived at the international terminal (all the more reason I was glad to have stayed in a hotel rather than hanging out waiting to check in at the airport).\u00a0 And before the fellowship broke up to go our separate ways, I grabbed a quick selfie.\u00a0 These ladies are wonderful and crossing paths with them was a highlight of a long travel day… into night… into day.<\/p>\n And things continued to be looking up.\u00a0 Once through security, I found a store that sold Coke Zero.<\/p>\n Here’s a weird imponderable — you can’t bring toy replica guns through security but you CAN buy a toy AK47 at the airport souvenir shop.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.runkevinrun.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/1B977CD6-4FE7-4548-8253-B95FC23C8C51.jpeg\")
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