What a crazy day yesterday! Absolutely nuts. Don't really know where to start so will just include the insane highlights...
To set the picture - we went up to the mountains for the "dramatic vistas" according to the LP guide. The day started off inauspiciously as we got on the bus and was shoved and pushed around as ppl scrambled for seats, it got particularly violent with Fiona getting scratched up and me exclaiming in exasperation, 'I friggin hate this country'...i know, not a very nice thing to say at all, I was just so irritated by people squeezing by me in the narrow bus alley in a bid to get to seats. I proceeded to sleep the entire way there on a little single seat behind the driver.
We got to the foot of the mountain and walked through one of the villages. A seemingly nice lady stopped us on the street and offered us a place to stay for 50yuan. We decided to check it out and saw that the room on the ground floor looked nice. We were in a rush to get to the summit of the mountain and back before night fall, so after some haggling, we paid for the room and left.
The hike up was great; waterfalls, trees, rickety old bridges, wooden pavilions, greenery everywhere, a pristine green lake that we crossed via boat. If it weren't for the hordes of Chinese tourists descending the mountain and having to navigate my way on the stone steps around the globules of spit, it would have been ideal... :)
We got 2 lots of cable cars back after racing for the last ones and the view from the first cable car ride was incredible...definitely dramatic vistas as promised.
Oh I forgot about the insane things that happened. The first one was getting screwed over at dinner when we got back to the hotel that woman ran. I ordered 2 dishes, the first was delivered to our table, it consisted of pig skin and fat. Pretty gross, but I figured it was one of the dishes that I ordered so nothing we could do about it. Ordering food is such a hit and miss affair, we have come to expect that we have about 50% chance of liking something we order. Anyway, after us half-heartedly pushing the fat around on that dish, we ate the 2nd dish and thought, hmm...the food here sux. That was when they delivered a third dish, my original order. I then told the lady we didn't order that first dish that was delivered, she assured me that I most definitely did. We figured, how much could pig fat cost? Imagine our surprise when we got our dinner bill! That dish was 2.5 times more expensive than the first dish I had ordered. I was so pissed at being duped like that. We coughed up the cash, went to our room feeling very unsettled. Found our ground floor room had these huge windows that open out to the courtyard and wouldn't lock. It didn't close properly either. The room at night was damp and actually rather dirty, in our haste to climb the mountain we didn't have a good look around. Now for the shower....
The lady came by to show us how it works. I forgot to mention that this lady only spoke the Sichuanese dialect. I know a few chinese dialects but sichuanese is not one of them, most of the time I kinda understand what is being said but this hot water shower thing was something that required 100% comprehension. The contraption involved an electrical power outlet into the hot water canister that was set on a wall above our heads. There was a power lever (one of the old-fashioned varieties that look like they belong on an electric chair to electrocute the prisoners), that was set next to the power plug. The power cord hung just below the hot water canister and connected to another plug on the side of the canister. There was a water lever (not a tap) that ensured water gushed out of the pipe. There was another nozzle on the canister but not quite sure what that did. The lady gave it a few good twists so I figured we didn't have to fuss with it. Does this sound like a safety hazard to you? Electricity power cords around water...?? Well, I kinda got the gist of it, reiterated what was said back to the lady in mandarin, she figured I understood. So I explained it to Fiona but told her I had reservations about this hot water thing. Fi was really gung-ho about trying it out so she stepped into the bathroom first....
As I was lazing around in bed I hear an explosion of water and then shrieks coming from the bathroom, I rush in and find that water has exploded out of the hot water canister and the most scary thing was sparks flying from the socket bc the electrical cord is getting wet. I shouted at Fi to get to the water lever and turn the water off. With that done, I gingerly stepped over to the power lever and pulled it up. After some zinging sparks, it all died down after which both Fi and I break out into peals of laughter. It was the most ridiculous situation and of course, neither of us had showers that night.
Now that room we were in was spooky. I don't quite know why I was so paranoid but I didn't feel safe there. Not being able to close our huge windows was a contributing factor, so was the big dude that came banging at our door at 10pm, ostensibly to give us a mosquito coil but he hung around for a while, checking out our room, there we were standing around in our pj's waiting for him to leave while he looked like he would sit down and watch the soccer game on tv with us. These were the same ppl who screwed us over for dinner, I didn't trust them at all.
I stayed up most of the night, the bed was clammy, I felt grimy, each little noise woke me up. After hardly any sleep, I hear Fi in the morning complaining of stomach pains. She got food poisoning from that dish of pig skin and fat....! At 7am we left the room without bothering to turn off lights, left the door ajar, it felt like we were breaking out of jail bc the doors were locked and we had to find an alternate way out through the kitchen.
We managed to flag a bus rumbling down the mountain road on the way to Chengdu city, it was completely full but as luck would have it, it was the same driver and his friend that drove us to the mountain (the same friend whom Fi insulted while getting on the bus!! lol, we were such bitches on the ride over). They recognised us and let us on board, we both sat on the luggage pad right in front of the bus and one of the guys proceeded to hit on me. What a crazy day at the mountain, all we wanted was to do some hiking... :) Definitely memorable.
4.22pm - Chengdu city. Aug 12, Thurs.
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