China 4 - To the Mountains and back

Friday July 15

It was nice to get out of the city.

We were on the way to the mountain resort Mr. Lai had booked for us,  passing through small towns where we could see many people going about their daily lives, so different than ours.

  In towns, the streets were lined with businesses and shops, all the same size, looking like like garage doors that have been left open. You might see a clothing shop next door to a greasy mechanic and a bakery next to that, and then a modern electronics store. But out in front of the store, we could often see large flat baskets used for drying peppers, or rice spread on the cement to dry. Their homes are above the storefront. Laundry hangs on a pole outside the windows. I think some of the store fronts ARE homes. 

 At the edge of the highway on a grassy spot, a cow with a rope through its nostril is tied to a pole. A variety of motorbikes zip along highways or busy streets or sidewalks, cutting across traffic, some carrying 3 or 4 people. No helmets.

Another thing I saw, out in the country, was the locals spreading their rice on the shoulder of the highway to dry, stirring it every so often throughout the day with home-made brooms. In the late afternoon, they sweep it up and bag it and off it goes in trucks to the city. Now I know why we should always rinse the rice before cooking it!

The mountain spa has a beautiful hotel. Here' the lobby.

Our room:

We changed as soon as we arrived and went to the pools. The hotel rests on a geothermal area and there are two dozen or more pools of hot water, each treated with different additives and at different temperatures. The coolest pools were the largest; warm, and mainly for swimming. The rest were therapeutic pools, and each one had a sign telling you the benefits of its use. There was Jasmine, Peppermint, Coffee, lemon, milk, wine, rosemary, lilac, and honeysuckle to name a few. I spent the most time in the pool with the little fishes that nibble at your dead skin. It’s unbearably ticklish!

Dinner was the usual small private room, and a round table with a Lazy Susan for the four of us. We got to know our guides better. Mark is 23 years old and has worked for his uncle Mr. Lai for 18 months. His English teacher was British, which adds to his difficulty understanding us: When we say it's “hot,” he hears the British, “heart.” The driver, whose name I could not pronounce, is around 40 and has a 17 yr old son. He has a great sense of humor and was quite entertaining with his goofy antics. Bert and I think they have a great job, which is to take care of Mr. Lai’s guests. Where to take us, was up to them to decide.

They decided to take us the next day, Saturday, on a gondola ride to the top of a mountain. There is a trail around the mountain, clinging to the edge of its steep cliffs.  It’s like the Grand Canyon of China. Unlike the bare cliffs of the Grand Canyon, these steep cliffs are covered with dense forest. It was very beautiful and awesome and a little scary at times. 

 You can see the little town off in the distance. Even in the country where there is plenty of room, you never see any single family homes. There are clusters of small apartments that would each hold 3 or four families - extended families, but no single family homes.

Before heading to the gondola Mark stopped at a little storefront to buy some bottled water. Bert and I went in just to see what they sell in a little store in a little town in rural Northern China. The only items we recognized as anything we'd see in North America were some chocolate bars and toothpaste. The little girl in there was staring at us, and Bert said hello to her in Chinese. Her jaw dropped open in surprise!

That ghostly reflection in the glass is my hand holding my phone

Bert and Mark

Our goofy driver, holding the mountain up so I could pass.

 There were actually quite a few people hiking there. There are rest stops along the way where you can buy drinks and snacks and use the toilet - a floor toilet of course, with no toilet paper of course.

Sometimes when people passed by us they would see we were not Asian and greet us with, "Hello!"

After the  went back to the little town and had lunch at one of these little shops in the town. Our “menu” was a cooler at the front entrance. They pointed to it and asked what we wanted to eat. We let our hosts decide. I haven’t a clue what we ate, but it was tasty.

The guys had a beer. I drank whatever this is. Rice, I think. 

 They don’t serve cold drinks unless you ask specifically. You will be reminded, "Not good for you!" I tend to believe them. They've been studying health and medicine here a lot longer than we have in North America.

As if a mountain hike wasn’t enough excitement for a day, after lunch we went white-water rafting down the river that originates high up in the mountains. It was so much fun! Part of the fun was engaging in water fights with other rafters. People bring buckets and water guns for this purpose. Of course, we looked different from everyone else there, and people would shout "Hello!" as they doused us with water guns.  It took 2-3 hours to get to the end of the trip. We must have gone 10 - 15 km.

After drying off and a change of clothes it was a two-hour drive back to the city where we had dinner with Mr. Lai and his staff at the same restaurant we'd visited the first day. Then back to our hotel, where Mr. Lai still insisted we go to the lounge for a drink. Can't we just go to bed? He is very persistent and it would be rude to turn him down. More food and more drinks showed up. We didn't stay too long. The mountain and the river had tired us out!

On Sunday we had to fly back down south to Chang An, back to the first hotel. Weseemed to circle around the airport for quite a while, then an announcement was made. Everyone immediately started to grumble and we couldn’t hear the English translation. It turns out our pilot could not see the runway  for the low lying clouds, so we were diverted to another airport 45 minutes away, where we sat on the ground for almost 3 hours. They gave the passengers us a can of beans while waiting. The beans were sweet, and eaten cold out of the can. Our 90 minute flight turned into about 6 hours. Those low-lying clouds burst by the time we got home, and there was quite a storm.

Monday, July 17 it was still raining and a wasted day. Bert’s boss told him he had to meet two fellow employees at the airport in Hong Kong, to show them how to get around China. So we had to schedule a bus to take the trip across the border to the airport and back again. One vehicle takes you to the border, then you have to switch to a different vehicle in Hong Kong to get to the airport. In Hong Kong, they drive on the left like in England.

 It poured rain all day, and we were tired from sitting in cars and waiting in the airport. Roads were flooded and the traffic jammed. I felt very bad for the one guy, Rick, who is quite tall and simply didn't have enough room for his legs in that cramped car. The excursion to  the airport in Hong Kong and back took 9 hours.

So I was very happy to spend today, Tuesday, in my hotel with my books and my laptop. It has poured rain all day. I am packing my bags again, because tomorrow I go to Korea to see Peter! We’ve been chatting on facebook and I’m so excited to see him!