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Neither of us really knew what to expect from Tianshui. We arrived on our bus (which left an hour late) in the middle of the night and caught a cab to a hotel nearby. It was a purely Chinese hotel, which was nice, no westerners in site.
In the morning, even though it was drizzly, mom and I set out for the Maijishan Grottos somewhere outside of town. Our trip consisted of catching one bus farther into town with mom sitting next to a man with two bags full of good luck crickets, each in their own personal wicker basket. I had just thought the bus was creaking a lot, it already felt like it would shudder and fall to bits if we hit a corner too hard. From that bus we caught another one, full of local Chinese workers, and headed out into the beautiful countryside. After a bit, a group of half a dozen more young-ish workers got on, very jolly-like, and began passing out cigarettes and sitting on each others' laps when the seats ran out. Two of them started wrestling around in the back seat until one of them got jabbed in the stomach then proceeded to throw up out the window of the moving vehicle while all his buddies laughed at him. Mom put on a sad face and patted him on the shoulder, causing all his friends to laugh again while he sat forlornly with his hand on his stomach.
I was very impressed with the Maijishan grottos. I expected more of a cave system along the ground, but in actuality, it was a large outcropping of rock with caves carved into it filled with statues of Buddhas and Bodhisatvas. Though I liked the view a lot from the bottom of this beehive of a cliff, we proceeded to climb up the stairs and catwalks to check out all the carvings up close and personal.
When we were finished with the grottos, we decided to go find the Immortal Cliffs maybe a half an hour away. To get there required us to climb up 10 minutes of steep steps until we suddenly found ourselves in front of a row of temples on a mountainside, underneath an impressive overhang of rock. It was quite beautiful and we immediatly started snapping pics. There were men there offering to take our pictures for some cash, but as we kept insisting that 'no, we have our own cameras' they settled for putting us in the most artistic locations and placing our arms at the right angles instead. One of these gentlemen decided to be our guide as well and led us down the mountain in a different direction than we had come up. I was convinced that he was leading us into some sort of tourist trap, but no, he showed us another great temple, a lovely lake and finally, the entrance once again.
That was one extremely full day with two great sites, but back in town we still wanted to check out the city center and see what was going on. Almost immediately we ran into the same cricket man as in the morning! We made (very) small talk and took his picture, he was so impressed (or something) he gave me a lucky cricket for free! I was thrilled! Until I reallized this meant I was then to carry a cricket around.... Eventually I gave it to a cute little Chinese kid who was yelling "Hello!" at me in the night market.
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