Day 32 - November 5th

Wake up at 9.30, shoulders still hurt and I find it really hard to get up. I suppose I’m not used to waking up so early from waking up around at least midday in Shanghai! I get ready and find out that I had the taps the wrong way again yesterday for the shower! STUPID!!! I get a decent enough bike (yesterdays was a little too small) and ride out to get breakfast in town. I meet Andrena at the Ming Hostel in town.

We get her a bike from the hostel (more expensive then my bike!). My first impression is that she doesn’t look too ‘mobile’ on the bike! I ask her when was the last time she rode, it was only a few weeks ago in Xian, though that was on the city wall, not on busy streets! I’m glad we changed our plans, as originally we were going to go ride through the mountains!

First stop, Yellow Dragon Cave Park. We dismount and walk up to the pagoda. Looks pretty different to all the other pagodas I’ve seen. Andrena whips out her wide angle lens for her compact camera. It looks pretty cool actually, bit weird for a compact camera but pretty cool gadget! We then trek up the mountain which gives pretty cool views of Hangzhou and try and find the Sunrise Terrace. We finally find it after getting lost and then bump into Paopin Temple, one of the places I wanted to go see.

After two hours of trekking in the park, we leave and go for lunch. Go to a pretty posh looking place on the north bank of the lake and turns out to be pretty expensive! Y50 each, but it was pretty nice food, had West Lake Fish, a speciality of Hangzhou.

We then re-saddled and cycled across Baidi Causeway and went to the provincial museum. It was actually pretty good, and free! I’ve never been to a free museum in China before! Would have been better if I hadn’t just been to Shanghai Museum the week before and Nanjing Musesum the week before that… I don’t think I will be going to another museum for a while! We then get to General Yue Fei’s Mausoleum. He was a general in the Song Dynasty who successfully fended off several invaders, but then was betrayed by the court and executed (fucking Mandarins!).

We then rode down Sudi Causeway and then all the way around the lake to return to the hostel where we rented the bikes! The hostel looks a lot livelier then the one I’m in at the moment! We go to the Old Street to look around and go for some tea tasting! Dinner was good, ate fatty pork (aka heart attack in a pot)!

Knackered, return to my hostel and use free internet!!!

Miles walked: 214.283m

Day 20 - October 24th

Slept in until 11! We (me and Tom) finally get our act together and rent bikes from the hostel. Tom had to get his fixed and he gets charged Y5, I think I would have got it for Y2 or 3! We get brunch at a Papa Johns which turns out to be pretty expensive for very little, however it is the first time in China I have seen a refill on fizzy drinks!

We then cycle to a park where the guard tells us we cannot enter with bikes. So we ride down the road a bit more and enter through another entrance where the guard just waved us through without paying! We then ride to a place called Zujin Mountain; basically huge park with a mountain in it. We decide against riding our bikes up the mountain as we don’t have too much time due to our late start (2 o’clock by now) and didn’t fancy the workout! We pass bus’ which goes to Argos! I later find many more buses in the city go to there. I’m guessing many people in Nanjing want to do some catalogue shopping!

We decide to skip the Ming tombs, but decide to go see Sun Yat Sen’s Mausoleum. It’s pretty cool with its blue nationalistic roof tiling, as opposed to all the red Communist style of Beijing I am used to! Dr Zhong Shan (another alias of Sun Yat Sen) was a very important figure in Chinese revolutionary history and is called the grandfather of the Chinese Nation, with his 3 principles; Nationalism, Sovereignty and Livelihood. He is revered by both Nationalists (Taiwan) and Communists. I admire a plaque erected outside his mausoleum reading; “The World Belongs to the Public” (trans.)

We also go to the Linggu Temple which houses the Beamless Hall… a large building with no beams supporting it. It’s not actually that impressive, just has curved roof arches and is converted into a sort of show room with revolutionary and anti-Japanese war dioramas. We then go see a pagoda… they all seem the same now!

It starts to get dark so we decide to make our way home. Have dinner at a restaurant on the way where I teach Tom how to eat meat off the bone. Funny how the food you eat when you are growing up dictates what you eat when an adult. Not much happens when we get back to the hostel. Played pool and then sleep. Sore bum again!

Miles walked: 129.587m

Day 11 - October 15th

3am wake-up call!!! Didn’t get that much sleep last night. The boys were snoring, I was really cold and there was a mozzy buzzing around. I don’t know how mozzys survive in this cold. If I was them, I wouldn’t bother coming up here to feast!

We climbed the rest of the way up to the peak of the mountain. It was really cold and we did it in the pitch black. It took another three hours hike up some real steep steps. Saw the sunrise… it was beautiful!

I dunno why, but there’s something about cute Chinese girls in big army jackets! And as usual, they’re with their douchebag boyfriends! I catch a cold on the peak as I sweated so much on the way up and I don’t think the Bai Jui (rice wine) we had last night helped at all!

I treat the boys to more slurp at the peak even though they thought it was a bit too expensive up there… I was hungry! Coming down was harder then going up. Though physically it wasn’t as demanding, I really had to concentrate on my footing as my boots were too big for the steps! We walk to the midway point again and decide to take the bus down as we were all knackered. I leave Tai Shan a little Shan (mountain) of my own in the toilet! Maybe that’s why I’m ill! I have angered the gods with my poo!

Arrive in town and then leave the boys as they want to stay in Tai'an for another day whilst I want to go to Qufu (hometown of Confucius). We decide to meet again in Qingdao in a few days. The bus to Qufu was playing the same film as from Luoyang. Something about the Japanese and guns… I don’t get it!

I arrive in Qufu around midday. It looks like a real old town and the walls are still intact around it! I can’t see a single tower block. I’m guessing that would interfere with the feng shui (apparently the train station was built a few miles away from the town for the same reason). The cab driver takes me to a hotel (one that I didn’t ask to be taken to) but I was too tired and ill to argue. I haggle the room from Y120 to Y70 a night, not bad I think! I have a shower and then chat to Lisa on the phone. The first time I’ve spoken English in 3 days! I sleep for an hour!

In my wanderings around the town, I don’t know how I understand the people. I ask them a question, but then they talk at me words I just don’t know (must be Shandong dialect or really accented) but I seem to know what they are on about! I really like the look of this place, very peaceful for China! I spend the rest of the day on an internet bar and still not manage to get all my first days pix online!

Eat at the food market. I think this is the nicest place I’ve been so far… maybe it’s the drugs talking! But all the trees had fairy lights on and it looked like Christmas! I retire to my room around 8pm. Watch Bewitched in Chinese… did the trick for putting me to sleep!

Miles walked: 76.155m
Steps taken: 93,779

Day 10 - October 14th

Not a great night’s sleep. I kept on being woken up by knocks on the door and phone calls asking if I needed any ‘special services’. By the time it was midnight I get pissed off and tell the lady on the phone to fuck off! Dodgy dodgy dodgy!!!

I wake up in a windowless room. First time I’ve ever slept in a windowless room. It’s strange because you just don’t know what time it is. It’s just dark! I also have to let you all in on a secret. I’m afraid of the dark so whenever I stay in a hotel on my own, I will always leave the TV on. My TV was turned off this morning and I don’t remember waking up to turn it off (it would have been a mission as the remote didn’t work so I would have had to get off my arse).

I go to a book store to pick up a few reads for my journey. The selection in the biggest book store in town was pretty lame. Just kids reading books or business ones! I take a two hour bus journey to Tai'an, the town at the foot of Tai Shan (the most sacred Taoist mountain in China). They show a Bollywood MTV on the journey.

I’m greeted in Tai'an by a taxi driver who almost convinces me to stay a night in a hotel in town and climb tomorrow morning. He argues that it will cost a lot tonight (weekend) and that there will be many people on the way up. He almost had me, but I was sticking with my guns. He still seemed awfully nice and I gave him a nice big smile and wave when I drove past him on a motor taxi! He wouldn’t take me to the place I wanted to go even though I requested he take me!

I decide to leave my backpack at the bus station and then do the traditional route for climbing Tai Shan. This started off at a temple at the foot of the mountain called Dai Temple where I brought some incense for my journey up. I wanted to retrace the steps of the old emperors and leave offerings at every temple I pass on the way to the top. I buy a ticket for the first temple and I give the lady in the ticket booth a big smile. Her face changes and she has an even bigger smile back! I doubt she has had anyone smile at her in a long time.

At the foot of the mountain I also meet two Chinese students. They turn out to be the soundest people I have met. They were so hospitable and offered me everything they had like a friend. I am so pleased to have met them on the journey up the mountain! We walk four hours up to the midway point where they negotiate a stay in a room for Y100 between the three of us. I was probably going to go to a hotel for Y200 upwards! The original plan was that we sleep outside… okay for me, as I had a sleeping bag, but I don’t know how they would have survived! I decide to buy them some Tai Shan baijiu (rice wine) for us to drink. First impression… not bad! Second shot… hmm?!?! Third shot… get that shit away from me! I end up having to leave the bottle outside out room as even the smell of it made me welch!

We head to sleep around 9pm. I forget my toothbrush!

Miles walked: 66.446m
Steps taken: 69,076

Day 6 - October 10th

I had trouble sleeping last night… must be the dodgy kebab I had for dinner yesterday! A group of lads from Leeds also turned up last night.

Cold this morning, so I go and have breakfast. This consisted of slurp and greasy cake (congee and some sort of pancakey thingy!!!) which I didn’t finish! The cake was alright though, so I brought an extra one on the go. I walk past the sex shops again… it’s 7 in the morning, who in the world needs a blow up doll or a dildo at that time??? I walk to the bus station and the attendants ask where I am from. I tell them I am from Hong Kong. They call me ‘tong bao’ which means we share a womb (the womb being China) and I manage to get on a mini bus which cost me only Y6.5. The Lonely Planet suggests Y20 for the bus ticket! Sweet!!!

The mini bus journey takes me through all these villages (no wonder why it was Y6.5) and to my horror, people on the bus start smoking. Mainlanders aye? We go past a village called Lau Village.

I get to Shaolin Temple and pay the entrance and find out Chinese guides are only Y50! English guides are Y200, so I decide to go for it, learn about the place and practice my Chinese on the way… worth Y50 I think! She was actually very useful and informative and told me loads of odd facts which I would never have found out. Like how all the pagodas in the Pagoda Forest odd numbered levels as a monk has to be celibate, therefore cannot be in twos (evens). Also, all the pagodas were facing the mountains apart from one, the smallest one which is in honour of a child monk who was very good at kung fu and his pagoda faces Shoalin Temple to protect it!

Although I do get sort of scammed! I go to burn incense and make three wishes (yes… a bit like a genie!) and the monk asks for a donation as he oversees the ritual. Shit… no change. Only hundreds! Oh well, I suppose it’s good to be pious once in a while! Afterwards I ask the guide if Y100 was a lot. She said no! But then she asked me how much the pound was compared to the Yuan. I tell her and I tell her that I’m sort of on a budget, travelling for three months and all! She tells me that next time, maybe I could give a little less. A few kuai would be enough!

After the temple, I decide to have luncheon… a pot noodle! I then take on the mountain. I start walking in the general I direction indicated by the Lonely Planet, but I start to lose heart. But then a group of monks approach and I ask them which way. They decide to help me on my quest (proper kung fu stylie!). I really didn’t know how to make conversation with monks. What do I say? Phwoooar, look the rack on her? So you fancy a drink lads? They were sooo charitable! We stopped at a store and they brought me some water and biscuits. Our paths then diverged as they were heading to their temple and I was heading up the mountain. They point me in the right direction and I start my ascent. After about an hour, I reach a path way and see more tourists. They had come up the cable car. I then look around and head even higher until the path sort of ends and there was a sign in Chinese. I didn’t understand it all, but I could see two characters which meant tourist. I decide to ignore the sign and carry on climbing, at this point sometimes on my hands and knees! I finally get to a peak and peer over to see a cliff edge. I have gone up the wrong mountain!!! There’s more mountain further on, but I can’t get to it as it was far too dangerous. Those monks! Sent me up the wrong mountain!!! Worse of all, it starts to rain and I have definitely not brought enough layers for this hike!

I then decide to come back down the mountain on the scariest cable car ride ever! Things got even worse. As I get off the cable car a man approaches and shows me pictures of the places I wanted to see today and said he would take me there for Y5. So I jump on, only to find he drives me to the exact spot that I met monks. I couldn’t be bothered to walk on as I was cold and wet so I make him take me back. I give him his money and told him sarcastically in front of his friends ‘I hope your business goes well’ they laugh at him! Next I get fleeced again! I decide there are a few more places in the Lonely Planet which is near by which I can see. I ask directions and the tour assistant shows me to this booth to buy tickets to these attractions. So I buy tickets to two things. I get on the bus and then the driver explains to me, you’re not going to get a chance to see both, it’s too late in the day! Pretty gay! I get talking to two guys on the bus from Gansu and I go to see one of the attractions. The… library; it was shit!

I then manage to get to Dengfeng (the nearest town) to try and get a bus back to Luoyang. It was pretty hard finding a cab. I chat to the cab driver and he asks me what language they speak in Hong Kong? I’m amazed!

I go home cold and tired!

Miles walked: 37.489m
Steps taken: 95,392