We made it to breakfast this morning and found an interesting selection - 'braun', steamed egg, weird tofu stuff, and the centrepiece attraction: bread pudding with tofu. There were many more cool things but I felt bad taking notes down there.
We then set about trying to get to and to climb the nearest mountain on what little nutrition we had managed to extract from said feeding. Locals were unclear about the best route to take, which I confidently took to mean that every route was excellent. We headed through the town and out the other side, even walking up this hill was pretty tiring, which didn't bode well. We dropped off the glasses we had borrowed from the pub two nights earlier. A few taxi drivers tried to convince us to let them drive us to the cable car, and didn't really understand that we wanted to walk up it. In fact it turned out that they mostly were interested in selling us the passes to get into the mountain area.
The climb itself took us through some woods and was immediately fairly steep. We followed what we were fairly certain was a path, trying to keep with the route that the cable car took, so that we would be able to take it back down. Some parts were fairly difficult to get up and we were aware that any rain would make it dangerous. Soon the oxygen was feeling scarce and it was feeling a lot like hard work. We passed lots of stone graves on the way, I'm not sure how the relatives got them there.
We passed a group of Chinese people with a guide at around half way which gave us some confidence, and I was very glad that I had insisted that we take a litre of water each rather than half as much. The correct amount to take was probably more like three litres though! It was very hot work despite there being good shade.
We reached the cable car stop after about 90 minutes; I hope I wasn't playing up the "climbing a mountain bit" too much. Yes, we only climbed for an hour and half, but it was certainly enough for me. At the top was a pretend temple where some monks tried to rip us off using incense and palm reading. We were aware of this sort of thing, and an unbelievably soft-spoken American was on hand to warn us. Monks are the keenest conmen in China, it seems. We were also able to buy some water, which was good because I was pretty certain several of my internal organs were about to pack up, and some crisps, which were without doubt the best I have ever tasted. The views from here were pretty great though the usual Chinese cloud/fug stopped them being exceptional.
This cable car area, it turned out, was a very mini town with an 'inn', market stalls, the temple and so on. Much earlier on I had removed my shirt, and as we walked past the temple area we encountered a local woman who can't have been any younger than eighty five. You should have seen the smile she gave when she saw this shirtless, bearded white devil coming towards her. She gave a big thumbs up at me and held it there along with her grin as we went past, and it was good to be appreciated for once (sob). Talking to some locals later, it emerged that she might have though I was Karl Marx. That was a joke.
From the top, we wandered in several directions. It was possible to climb further up, but it was only recommended with the full safety gear. We walked for a few kilometres along this mountain path, which was pretty memorable (I hope). We took photos of us sitting on some fairly precarious ledges. At one point it rained massively heavily and we were grateful for the £1.50 umbrellas we were forced to get the previous day back in civilization.
We took the cable car down and had a great view of the Three Pagodas and the lake, which is named after the part of the body that it is meant to be shaped like. This would be the ear, but to be honest my bread pudding with tofu breakfast was far more like an ear than this perfectly normally shaped lake. Sorry, ancient Chinese culture and history.
Back in the old town, we chose somewhere to eat from the guidebook, and settled on a place offering yak goulash. It was delicious actually, the yak was tasty and there were some nice vegetables for a change, but it was nothing like a goulash. For dessert, I had some yoghurt, being that kind of exciting guy. Lloyd had a pancake which was pretty crappy, but the first pancake you make always is, right?
We walked back to the hotel and on the way Lloyd bought some marble, which is one of the local industries. An English started talking to me, and it turned out it was the same guy who unreasonably had accused me of theft the previous day. I told him that we had returned the glasses, and to my surprise I found that I was his new best friend. He then told me about his pub, his new micro-brewery in the mountains and the amazing band who were playing his pub that night. He also saw fit to use his full range of favourite swear words. It was just like being in London.
At the hotel, Lloyd realised he'd left his camera at the restaurant, and had to taxi it there and back. I met him downstairs where our taxi was waiting for the night's extravaganza of entertainment.
We had already bought ticket's to a performance called Butterfly's Dream. Lloyd suggested it and for some reason I didn't have the heart to object, probably because he's been very kindly escorting me around China. The concierge had a taxi waiting for us when we got downstairs (I could get used to this). We turned up and there was a large group of people participating in organised fun. There was a big circle of people doing a dance so basic that I suspect even I could have excelled. Obviously, being a miserable bugger, I chose not to, despite the protests of some people dressed like idiots. A man with an extremely low voice led loudspeakered everyone instructions. There is a small chance that I feigned injury in order to get out of this crap. Everyone did seem to be loving it though.
We went into the theatre and found we were in the front row. What unfolded over the next 90 minutes was a big bunch of.... shrimps, lobsters, seaweed, yak, birds, butterflies, 3 pagodas, fire breathing somethings. I have no idea what those firebreathing people were supposed to be, but it was very cool and very warm. The firebreathers managed to petrol over our legs, which redefines the term 'audience participation'.
This was occasionally interrupted by video about the local area, with subtitles projected on a net in order to render them illegible. It was kind of entertaining whilst also being cripplingly boring. There were a few good bits - some impressive Indian dancing for instance. Anyway, half way through we legged it out into the entrance. The doors were all padlocked with heavy chains and I realised at that point that the communists had trapped us and we were almost certainly going to be..... nope, the middle door was open. Bye then! And thanks!
The early exit meant that we had time to check out the band that the maliciously accusing man had recommended to us earlier, at his pub. I'll describe it here for you: it was shit. We had a quick chat with the girl who had beat us at pool a couple of nights before and headed off in search of better.
We went past a few bars that didn't entice us so much, but wandered into the next one as it looked fairly nice. We ordered some home-made plum wine, which was really delicious despite coming from the sort of container I'd associate with paint stripper. I thought, I've had something like this before, and it took a while to realise that it was plum schnapps in Germany. What a surprise. The barman seemed pretty friendly and was talking to an Australian in Chinese, which I was kind of impressed by. The stereo was playing Australian rap, something about "pills in the surrey hills". Disappointingly that quote returns nothing on Google so we must have imagined it. We had a chat with the barman about the usual stuff, complimented him on the plum wine, and then left.
The next bar was a bit dingier but Lloyd was tempted by the offer of vodka tasters, despite the fact that vodka had made him stay up all night vomiting. We went in after I declared that I was not touching a drop of vodka. We sat at the bar and ordered so beer made in Laos, which was good stuff. The hippy had somehow overtaken us and was chatting with the bargirl who was essentially lovely. She was called Kiki, or Xixi in Japanese I think, or in English ..... Hope. There was another girl in there who was trying to play poker with the hippy and an excellent dog.
We had a couple of beers while the hippy talked at us about politics - how the UK's system didn;t really give any more choice than the chinese one because of how the media works - I wonder what book he's been reading this week, and we talked with the girl about star signs and languages. Lloyd then played with the dog for a while and we looked through their range of bizarre vodkas, the details of which escape me now.
We left, using the excellent public stone toilets on the way. Perhaps this might be a way to deter vandals in the UK - carve all public facilities from stone. Starting with bus shelters. We saw a guy in a bar being taught to play an instrument which I'm reliably informed is called an er hu. It's like a two stringed violin except the bow isn't tensed and runs between the two strings. The bow plays one string and then you tense it if you want it to play another. The teacher gave me a brief lesson and I managed to not sound to bad. I wish I'd asked him to give me a demo too.
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