Day 5 - October 9th

Rough night last night. The Singaporean old guy was snoring all night. Some how I managed to sleep straight away, but when I woke at 4am I just couldn’t get back to bed! I had to go get my ear plugs to shut out the noise!!! It was a sort of two-tier snore - the first part was heavy breathing, but at the peak of his breath, it was like all the flappy skin inside his nose was vibrating!

I braved the communal showers and didn’t manage to get raped or anything… phew! Then I had breakfast with Sam who was really surprised how cheap you can get food for in China. We went to a scummier looking restaurant then she usually does, which doesn’t have an English menu. Pays to be in the know ;)

Even with all the savings and food, I couldn’t convince her to stick around and go to the Shaolin Temple and go to Kaifeng together! So I walk her to the station and we walk past sooo many sex shops!!! The whole street opposite the station was full of them! How strange!

I got on the bus to go to see Guanlin Temple and the Longmen Grottoes where a man sits next to me and decides to start a conversation. He catches on that I’m not Chinese-Chinese and we just chat about stuff. It’s a shame, but I wish I had videoed it, but I played my first Chinese ‘what’s in the bag???’!!! It turns out he owned a fruit cart and had just picked up some fruit from the market and was taking it back to his wife to sell. So he had fruit in the bag!!! Wouldn’t have guessed that! Then I did one of the most dangerous things ever! I told him I was going to Guanlin Temple and he tells me that I’m actually on the wrong bus, I should take the no.55. We chat for a bit more where he decides to see if I know much Chinese and shows me his ID with his address for me to read. He also tells me how he has a kid who is in a Wusu school next to Shaolin Temple! He is about to get off the bus and then I ask him, would it be easier for me to get to Guanlin Temple if I jump off here and get a cab? He says yes, so I jump off with him. He then tells me that he will take me there as it is near by and it was his day off work after he drops off his bag. So he makes a call and his wife comes peddling along on her bike/shop. He then takes me across the road and says, oh, you can buy clothes over here if you want. I’m like, errr, no, I’m okay, can we go to the Temple now? So we jump into the nearest motor taxi and drive to the temple. Then I think maybe it wasn’t the best idea to go off with a stranger who I met on the bus! My reckoning was that the guy showed me his ID and his address, no one would do that if they’re about to rape you! We drive past a church! I carry on chatting with him and he says to me that ‘your father is in a business, and so am I, but mine is a little smaller!’ which I found very humbling. In the end we arrive at the Temple and HE pays the driver Y2. I buy my ticket and then I try to give him some money for his troubles. This was what I thought I should do. A man did a service for me, so I should repay him. He wouldn’t accept it and in fact I think I might have offended him! He says that he doesn’t want my money and that he has loads… which I did see he did! So I suppose the moral of the story is… sometimes there are random acts of kindness and that not everyone is after the foreigner’s money!

The Guanlin Temple was pretty cool. In the gardens of the grounds is an earth mound which is where the severed head of Guanlin is buried. I move on to Longmen Grottoes where I am in two minds whether to stay until dusk when the lights light up the Buddha. I decide to leave around 4pm as I get bored!

Early night tonight, going to climb a mountain tomorrow and hang out with the monks!!!

Miles walked: 27.822m
Steps taken: 70,795

Day 4 - October 8th

Decide to sleep in and have a late check out. I needed the sleep to catch up on the last few days. I eat at the hotel, a bowl of rice, some veg and two fried fish. It was a really good meal and only Y25 and I didn’t even finish it because there was sooo much fish! Not bad going I think for a hotel, though I did go in the restaurant and basically asked for the two cheapest dishes on the menu! They must have thought I was such a gypo!

I get to the bus station where I find cleaners putting sand on the floor and mopping it up. How very strange! I think I get over-charged on the bus, as I read in the Lonely Planet that it costs about Y20 whereas I pay Y40. Bus journey was really good though! First notable thing to mention is the Y2 porn DVD shop we drive by - shame that the bus doesn’t stop for you!!! We drive for about an hour out of the city. Big contrast! The first thing I think about is how different it was from the fields down in the south of China. I remember driving past a rice paddy on my way to Guangzhou airport and seeing lots and loads of green. The fields in Henan are pretty much empty. I suppose the harvest has just been collected a few weeks back. It seemed a barren place. Then I notice that what I thought were bags in the middle of fields were actually people with ploughs and such. There were loads of people, just in the field ploughing and digging. Now to me that seems so very, very strange. I mean, I never lived in the countryside or anything, but when ever I see such big expanses of fields, you would see maybe a tractor or two and a combine harvester to collect all the crops. In China, there’s just a bollock load of people with hand ploughs and a ton of elbow grease.

I arrive in Luoyang at 5pm. It seems even colder here and looks miserable. I book into my first hostel (Y40 a night), where at the counter the girls are squabbling. One’s complaining to the other to stop playing solitaire and do some work whilst she retorts back “do your job properly” when the girl serving me makes a mistake. Seems like a barrel of laughs here! I meet a girl called Sam who has been travelling China for the last two weeks and seems to have a very similar route planned as me. Shame she is leaving tomorrow morning and I plan to spend two days here. I walk into the toilets and to my horror… COMMUNAL SHOWERS!!! I’m relieved as I don’t have soap, but have shower gel!!!

I explore the surroundings and find a wet market down some back street. It was like walking back in time! Back with the salt of the earth! I also find a place which sells sunflower seeds. I tell the shop assistant that I want Y5 worth, she turns around and gives me the biggest fuck off bag of seeds. I wish Matt (Early) was here to finish it all! I have dinner in a side of the road restaurant. I order a portion of dumplings and I get a strange look. Turns out there are sixty dumplings in a portion! So I order half a portion for Y6!

I drink my first Luoyang beer and get started on my seeds! I’ve hardly made a dent after 2 hours!

Miles walked: 19.607m
Steps taken: 49,892