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Another hilarious day in China. The rain has stopped, the smog has lifted and the temperature has soared! Feels like having a hair dryer being constantly blown on your face, or like you've stuck your head in the oven or like you're an egg frying on the surface of the sun.
Early start as we had to get a taxi to the train station- it's a little out of town, newly built in futuristic style, and like all things Chinese, surpasses expectations. Think LHR terminal five and then some. It's shiny, clean (synchronised sweeping by 8 cleaners across the expanse of marble floor at 6am- the perfect example of the government ensuring that everyone really does have a job), and you feel like you're getting on a long haul flight or even a spaceship rather than a train. You're only allowed to enter the platform just before the train arrives (it's so clean you could eat your dinner off it, I'm sure ideally they'd like to get you to take your shoes off!), and you get quickly ushered to your shiny, clean, spacious and vigorously air-conditioned carriage (first use of the cardigan since the uk!). And there's waitress service coffee, once the train has sped out of the station and past the mile-long platform and reached warp speed. And they have announcements in English. We're in heaven. So comfy in fact that were nearly missed our stop- got there an hour before we were expecting to!
Arrive at Luoyang station and meet eager "frank" who is there to pass on the tickets for our onward journey to Shanghai tonight. Frank also helps us find someone to drive us to where we want to go for the day- so in under 10 minutes we have our own personal driver (snazzy), for a great price (bonus), and our luoyang day trip is sorted. Good one Frank.
Head tothe Shaolin Temple first- it also has a kung fu school, so funny to see little kids doing some synchronised practicing (with some pretty cool moves!), first thing in the morning. The Kung Fu academy trains children as Buddist Shaolin monks- they're all doing their morning run or laundry (their mothers must be proud), as we arrive!
The entrance to the temple really does live up to its trip advisor reputation of feeling like you've just walked into the magic kingdom. After a golf buggy transfer (we've now developed the Chinese habit of really not walking unless we absolutely have to...it's too hot!), we get to the shaolin temple....it's been "creatively" regenerated- think poster paint and plastic bins in the shape of a dragon and you're probably near it. The monks also seemed to do more tours and souvenir selling than normal monk-Y activities.
The "pagoda forest" (where they build stone pagodas similar to the big goose in memory of monks who have died), is a lot nicer and different from anything else we have seen.
We then do one of the disneyland rides going up the mountain on a rope cable car. Lovely views from the top and then Nic did the short climb to the very peak, featuring in countless Chinese families photos. Gemma sat in the shade and also featured at the forefront of many a Chinese family's snaps.
Visit the Long men caves next- again our expectations were massively exceeded. After sweating and climbing many more stairs we arrived at one of the largest Buddhas I have ever seen. We had to motivate each other up the final set of (almost vertical), steps, and our conversation went something like this;
N: one more.
G: I'm going to stop, I literally don't know much more of this I can do!
n: one more. We're going to have a rest half way up
G: it's probably not worth it anyway.
N: we're going to the top
G: Im dying and i need iced tea!
N: we're going to the top. Good boy
.
Anyway, we both made it (protestations aside), and it was worth it in the end. The Buddhas are about 1000 years old. There were hundreds of caves or hollows with Buddhas (about 100,000 in total, stretching for 1km down the river), often with the head removed (lonely planet tells us lots of these are in museums in the western world...including the British Museum...tut tut).
We head to the train station for the night train, but only after Gemma successfully locks herself in the smelly hot squatty portacabin toilet . After a lot of shouting and banging, she attracts the attention of a chinese Burberry hat wearer, who tries to open it, then scampers off giggling. I think we have already mentioned their impeccable manners but this was a particularly good example, which was momentarily panic-stricken but thankfully (for the sale of Gemmas nose), quickly resolved!
Arrive in the station sweltering (the plastic on my rucksack has melted!), and seek refuge in KFC on account of its ice-cold air conditioning. Got accosted by a weird Chinese man who said Nicola looked like a penguin and asked why we were a bit red (understatement of the century). Shook him off only to have a morbidly obese chatty Dutch man to contend with for the next 15 hours in our cabin - thankfully he is on the bottom bunk! Cant decide which could be more difficult to deal with for the next 15 hours: talking to chatty chinese man in pidgeon English or listening to the chinese man in our cabin try out all the ring tones on his snazzy new phone (circa 2004) and continually shout some form of irate conversation in rapid Chinese?! Could be another interesting sleep on the night train.
- comments
Anne Read Good Boys, getting to The Top!! Glad everything in Luoyang was so worth going to. Look forward to the photos of the lobsters - I would have thought that that might have been a better comparison than penguin...?... Hope temperatures plummet in Shanghai...Love Mum xx
Candace Dovey It all sounds like some sort of amazing but surreal planet that you are both visiting. How will you every get used to "normal" again?Or perhaps you will both come back with some wacky Chinese habits..sounds fun! Enjoy the last part of your holiday... and sorry to say it, but prepare yourselves for rain (lots of it). Hopefully it will be a welcome relief fromthe soaring temperatures. Love Mum XXXX