I meet
my driver as pre arranged at 7am and after about 15 mins am moved into another minibus which heads off out of town, stopping at a petrol station after about 5 mins. At the station I am moved into yet another car and for some reason I have a bad feeling about this journey, maybe it's just the fact that this third car doesn't have any Buddhist pictures or charms that must have been preventing the previous cars from crashing. All is well for the first 3 hours or so, and then we pull into Manigango, a rough half way point of the journey. It is here that the driver then says he is stopping and asks me for the fare to get here. I explain that I am going to Ganzi and will pay 65Y as pre arranged to get there, the driver doesn't accept this and wants 50Y for getting me here. Eventually the second driver catches up and they have a small dispute and he says he can'
t take me to Ganzi as his car is full already, he then makes a speedy get away leaving me with this driver and a small crowd who are watching the event like it's the latest episode of EastEnders. To my rescue comes a slightly older driver who I talked to briefly the day before and from what I can make out, he says that as the driver accepted me, he must get me to Ganzi. After around 20 mins of arguing, the driver eventually put
s me on a regular bus from Manigango to Ganzi for 35Y and takes the rest of the 30Y as his fare, but he is not happy at all. My helper wears a cowboy hat and a black jacket and maybe it's because he just helped me out, but I think he is damn cool. An end to a sticky situation and I can't thank him enough, but he keeps saying it is all OK and then gets back to his work of trying to find people to take to his next destination. It's nothing to him, but for me the help meant so much.
Once in Ganzi I am determined to find somewhere to stay that has a shower, it's been about 5 days staying in places with nothing but a dodgy toilet and temperamental running water. I find a place near the bus station run by two women and after my bargaining for about 10 mins get it down to 50Y per night. I think the women find me amusing and my negotiation antics seem to be a hit. We sit down together and drink tea and have some sweets and then they even make me a massive dinner. It gets quite funny when the older one tries to set me up with younger one, saying I should take her back to the UK, I manage to avoid this situation, but next they both say they will come to the UK with me, especially after they ask how much a cleaner can earn there (20Y per day in Ganzi and what works out to be about 440Y[min. wage] in the UK)
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