Well to further the Huangshan adventure - after we hiked down the mtn and had been hanging around Tangkou, we were convinced to go visit the local 9 dragon waterfalls... What we didnt know is that it was a further hike up and down in the hottest part of the day. Definitely gets up over 90 most days and wicked humid. Good practice for Thailand. So completely exhausted, we got ourselves on the bus to Nanjing... A most HORRIFIC experience. Words can not describe the pain involved. A normal looking bus and whatnot but we had a 5.5 hr journey over what seemed like complete gravel roads. ridiculous! Every part of the bus was shaking and I was surprised that it held together for the whole trip. As for the 3 of us, we just had to hunker down, kindof try to hold on to our insides, close our eyes, and wish for the end - be it arriving in Nanjing or driving off a cliff...
So after all our adventures we splurged in Nanjing and directed the taxi driver to take us directly to the Hilton! Definitely worth the extra money as we got our first showers in about 3 days, air conditioning, and glorious sleep on real beds. The next day we went out on a walk, hiked up to the city walls (painfully) and decided to see the sights on Purple mtn just outside the walls. Well, as we have yet to find a map that is to scale while in China, what looked like a short distance was a mildly ridiculous hike that would could have/should have easily paid 7RMB for. We saw the 700 yr old Ming tombs and Sun Yat-Sen's masoleum before calling for a break. Just too hot to keep walking. Definitely took a taxi back and returned to see the 3rd main sight Laggu Pagoda. Much nicer outside after about 4:30pm and a great breeze up on the 7th floor of the pagoda. Good 'view' of the city too. View is in quotations because you can't ever really see very far. We had some clear days up on the mountain, but they were an exception. The vast majority of the time it feels like you either have an eye problem or there is veil over everything about 5 ft. in front of you. A country in the middle of the industrial revolution, the haze is absolutely horrible. everywhere.
From Nanjing a train ride (glorious after that bus!!) to Suzhou, the 'venice of the east.' A small town of only 5 million people... Yesterday we explored and visited several of the famous gardens. Hard to compare gardens with gorgeous natural landscapes though and I think that none of us were very impressed. Visited the 'humble administrators garden' the cities largest and the 'lion grove garden' which is full of weird shaped rocks and man made caves. During the evening we walked around all the shops and whatnot, bargaining for DVD's mostly. This morning slept in and caught a train to Shanghai. Ran into some other american's on the train - undergrads at MIT who teach in here in the summer. When white folks are so rare, it's nice to sit and chat with people from similar backgrounds. Our plan is a night here and tomorrow catching the 4pm overnight train to Xi'an.
We've finally gotten the hang of traveling in China - when you run into people who speak english, make them write everything/place necessary in the forseable future down in Chinese. Hand said paper to the taxi driver or the people selling train tickets and you'll be just fine. In fact, I think it would be quite simple to get around if any of us knew ANY chinese!
No comments:
Post a Comment