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Published: June 25th 2017
Geo: 27.8205, 99.7074
Well, halfway through our mainland China adventure and here we are perched on top of the world at 3 850 metres above sea levels the beautiful Shangri-La and feeling acclimatised after a couple of days at altitude at Jiuzhaigou.
Yesterday was a mammoth travel day. The alarm rattled the darkness at 4.45 and this was followed by the hotel wake up call at 5 am. We had packed the night before so it was really just the electricals, the safe and a few zippers and we were in the lobby settling the account and were ready and waiting at 5.20.
The car arrived ...the company van NOT the Rav4....but my spirits were immediately squashed...it was the Mad Mountainman driver. And so began the SLOWEST mountain journey in the history of Jiuzhaigou. We crawled at snail's pace up the mountain, around the bends and through the valleys. It was such a sedate drive I ate breakfast and had a sleep. We were passed by cars, trucks and buses...in fact we were travelling so slowly a yak drawn buggy would have passed us! What a difference two days can make.
Kerry was patrolling the front seat with an iron fist. If the Madman
turned on his music Kerry snapped of a few short words that put an end to that! If he wound down his window to let in a blast of cold air ...ditto. And if the speed limiter beeped she was onto that in an instant. The poor Madman - the only deviations permitted were a few mournful bars of a very sad song that he sang every now and then to relieve his boredom. Mac and I almost felt sorry for him!
Light snow had fallen over night and we were able to sit up in the back seat and enjoy the view as we ambled along. And we didn't even have to hang on!
We arrived at the airport in perfect time and as we were gathering our belongings Kerry handed Mac a piece of paper that had a notification of a flight change on it for us! Instead of a one hour flight from Chengdu...we were being diverted to Kunming and our expected arrival time would now be 7.40 pm. Bugger.
And to make it worse, there was no internal transfer on domestic flights at Chengdu - we had to do the whole baggage collection, checkin and security thing again.
Certainly
a change of pace for us. We just treated it as a rest day and spent the time relaxing.
The touchdown at 7.40 was extremely welcomed and there were Dupten and Tofu waiting to take us to the The Great Hotel of Goodluck and Happiness....in a van that had a lucky boulder on the floor in the back seat...a mere 7 minutes from the airport (it would have been 5 minutes...but we had to go three times around the shrine at the roundabout for luck).
The hotel is quaintly beautiful and the people are so friendly ..a warmness and familiarity about them. The beds are the HARDEST so far in China and it is our first encounter with single beds....the room is like a country town B&B.
We are a little late but Dupten dashed next door to the restaurant and organised a dinner for us. We persuade him to join us - and we are the only diners in the 500 seat restaurant and the wait staff are madly resetting the restaurant for breakfast for tomorrow morning and are working at a frenzied pitch because they are trying to finish so they can get to the disco in town. Dupten's disco days
are over - he is a married man with two children (Tibetan ethnic minority group member...so can have two children.)
About the food - totally delicious. Is it because we haven't eaten all day or are the flavours just so tantalisingly different? Who knows, but we enjoyed soup, green vegetables and two meat dishes with rice and it was mouth-wateringly delicious!
While we were enjoying dinner another English speaking guide came and joined us for a chat. We didn't quite know what was going on but she was chatting away animatedly in fabulous English...with a TAMPON stuck up her nose. After a few minutes we had to ask what was going on....she was having a nose bleed because of the heat....it was 8 degrees! Of course she was asking the obligatory questions...where are you from..,how long have you been here...and threw in the now familiar question of Mac ..."Are you Chinese?" Well you can imagine that this cracked us up ...again.
The restaurant floor is a series of slated timbers. It is a bit tricky to walk on. We asked about this and were informed it is to help with the cleaning. Food is wiped off the tables, onto the floor,
swept down into the cracks and then hosed off the concrete. So convenient.
And better than the marble tiled entrance if you ask Mac. As we were leaving. He put on a great show of disco dancing as he accidentally slid on the marble and had to perform some marvellous acrobatics to stay on his feet. Much to the delight of the staff waiting to make their exit for a night of "real" dancing.
I have been fascinated by the hotel goodies everywhere we go. there have been tooth brushes and combs to try...soaps and shampoos...moisturisers and sewing kits....shoes shines, slippers and expfoliating mits.....each hotel has featured a veritable treasure trove of bits and pieces. But this is the first place to take the one child policy so seriously. Check out the photo and see of you can work out what this little Inn of Gladness and Happiness offers to weary travellers.
I have to go....Mac has been attacked by the dual shower heads and is screaming ...I have to save him for a change.
Pedometer reading: 2 508
Temperature: Jiuzhaigou 0 C, Chengdu 25 C, Kunming 28 C, Shangri-La 8 C
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JA
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I'm fascinated in the massive changes in temperatures your experiencing... I'm not sure if I'd cope with the 0C to 28C and back to 8C in one day. Impressive.