The Ferry from Yantai

Travelling during the Spring Festival was really beginning to take its toll. The trains were routinely packed, and it was getting more and more difficult to find any tickets that weren't standing room only. We were regularly covering huge distances and usually at night, which disrupted our sleep patterns, which then in turn left our immune systems low. We were all getting sick, and really didn't need the two-hour wait in Qingdao train station’s ticket hall, where we did, however, manage to bag three hard seat tickets north to Yantai, from where we hoped to take a night boat to Dalian.

I was in pretty cheerful mood. I'd come to like Qingdao, with its narrow streets, yellow-brick houses, steep hills and interesting little DVD and clothes shops. My holiday budget had disappeared in a cool little shop called 'Old Skool Skatewear'. We never saw much of Yantai, going straight from the train to the ferry ticket office to book our boat. It was 8 pm as we lined up to catch the bus that the ferry company had laid on to take train passengers to the terminal. Just as we reached the front of the line, the driver shook his head, indicating the bus was full (a first in my experience in China). We were then infuriated to see him allow four or five more Chinese on.

We were pointed towards a second bus, which sat stationary and driverless. When the driver finally turned up, having finished his mah-jong or noodles, the queue had disintegrated into a scrum. Battle ensued around the opening doors of the bus, elbows, knees, fists, feet and rucksacks the weapons. One guy grabbed Danuka rudely and flung her out of the way. Then we attacked. Tam elbowed him in the stomach, I grabbed his shoulders and yanked him back, and Tash scraped her heel down his shin and stamped on his foot. Down he went, with a pained cry. Serves him right. After a ten minute drive, with five minutes to spare, we ran from the bus onto the ferry’s gangplank, and were, for some reason, ushered through to a room with plastic bucket seats nailed to the floor, where a movie on a big screen was playing at such volume that the distortion sounded like a wounded animal. We had to scream at each other as if we were on top of a mountain in a blizzard, before realising we were all saying the same thing: let's get out of here.

The boat was full to the gunnels. It was like cardboard city out on deck, where every inch of space had been marked out as 'ours' by huge families, ranging from wailing babies to grandparents, sheets, duvets, and other assorted bedding spread across the decks, defining colourful territory like a political map of small neighbouring countries. As we walked down corridors, we stepped over drunks, vomit, fighting children, an array of limbs, heads, bags and suitcases, men and women cooking, talking, drinking and playing cards. We finally found the ship's captain and, after Danuka had fluttered her prodigious eyelashes at him, were taken to a four-bunk cabin with a tiny black-and-white television that stubbornly refused to find a reception. No matter, we had beer and a bed. It was only when we had to stray out into the cramped corridors to visit the toilet, were we reminded of the uncomfortable boat people packed together all around us, our cabin a quiet island amongst raging seas.