Pijou, Baijou, and the glories of a Typhoon

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I wish I could say that all our experiences here have been amazingly successful, but as everyone knows, in travel, nay in LIFE, this is never the case. Still, we live through these strange, sometimes unpleasant, sometimes scary, adventures so that afterwards we can bore our friends with the stories and reflect on them with smiles. Our latest mishap, so to speak, is entitled Putuoshan.

Putuoshan is an island off the east coast of China, in the East China Sea. Its main attraction is a sacred Buddhist mountain, one of the four in the country, hence the name. ('Shan' is 'mountain' in Chinese). (On another brief note, we gave Kyle the chinese name "Wai Shan" which means "foreign mountain" because he towers above everyone so much and scares all the chinese people away.) We decided to go because Kyle had been to another sacred mountain which he had adored, and we liked the idea of an island. Lonely Planet also called it “the China or our dreams made up of pictures out of a book”, so we headed off from Hangzhou with two people from Madrid, Alba and Anta. Ha ha ha…the China of our dreams….the words ‘regret’ and ‘bitter disapointment’ spring to mind.

I exaggerate, of course. The problem was that we arrived on the island on the birthday of Buddha, which would seem like a happy coincidence, but it was packed, and made everything triple the price. We spent hours trying to find a room, and ending up paying far too much for a truly awful room with four beds packed into it, and a shared bathroom at the end of the hall which was... well, all I need to say, I think, is that the sink drained into a bucket, and the shower head was a hose. Thank God we brought our own toilet paper because it certainly wasn’t provided. It was a funny and extremely frustrating experience -- when we stepped outside of the ferry station, about ten men surrounded us trying to sell us hotel rooms. We finally decided to bargain with one, and we got him down to 160 yuan per room, which was a pretty fair. He walked with us to the hotel, and then promptly left without a word, after which we learned from the clerks that the room swere no less than 600 yuan! So much for a decent bed. After that, we had to smile, it was just so foolish of us in the first place. We had some good entertainment in our search though: an extremely persistent and stubborn Chinese woman latched herself onto us moments after we got into the two streets they call town, trying to sell us rooms. We bargained with her the first time, and then turned down the room because it was worse than prison, but she wouldn’t give up! She even sat with us while we ate! We got rid of her eventually, only to run into her the next day, when she sat through another meal with us! It was so funny, because she just refused to understand the word no. “Room? Room? You want room? Sleep? Yes? Sleep? Room? Eat? Sleep?” NO!!!

For our cultural experience of the week, We were able to see a true Buddhist celebration, which was fascinating. Hundreds or thousands of people had come to this island of worship basically as a pilgrimage, and people slept everywhere -- in the temples, on the streets, in the parks -- on whatever they could lay their hands on, meaning benches, cardboard, leaves. It was quite humbling, really, to see so many people who were so dedicated to their beliefs. The temples were filled with people lighting incense and praying to the four winds. (It was the first time China had ever smelt nice. They should have incense lit everywhere). The next day we hiked up the mountain, which was a grind, but quite frankly, disappointing. The mountain is more of a hill, and the temples have all been renovated, so that the ghostly atmosphere, that profound historic significance that one gets from ancient buildings and sites, just wasn't there any longer. Again though, we were able to see what the people do to worship. Since the island is dedicated to the female Buddha, women play more major parts in prayer, and as we walked up the stairs to the peak, we saw women walk up three steps at a time, then kneel down and touch their foreheads to the concrete, and repeat, until they had reached the statues in the temple. It must have taken them hours. The day was heavy and humid, though not as sticky as the cities. There was a strong wind coming from the sea, which cooled us off when we reached the peak. When we started to walk to the port with our packs, a torrent of rain exploded on us, and we were absolutely soaked by the time we arrived. We got there only to find out, after two hours of waiting in line, that all boats were suspended due to the TYPHOON. When did that happen??? I suppose we just hadn't noticed how strong the wind was, but apparently, the tip of the typhoon over Taiwan had decided to pay a visit to our island.

Knowing that everyone would be trying to get off the island, and keeping in mind that we had reserved train tickets from Hangzhou on the following day at noon, the four of us decided to sleep at the port. Sadly, they closed the waiting area at 6:00 pm, so we slept outside, in an alcove, in the typhoon. It wasn't so bad really. This is wear the pijou (beer) and baijou (chinese liquor) comes in. I stayed away from the beer myself, to be honest. I'm not much of a beer drinker, but we needed something (like Baijou) to keep us warm. We stayed up all night playing cards, because the winds were so loud that it was almost impossible to sleep. When morning arrived, the boats were still suspended until further notice! Our night outside in the tip of a typhoon, drinking disgusting chinese liquor had all been for nothing. We got a room and slept the day away. We didn't get off the island until the next afternoon, missing our reserved bus and train tickets, and losing two days of travel. We cursed the island and we cursed Buddha. It was so completely ridiculous because it wasn't as though there was anything there to really occupy us. The whole island was a Buddhist tourist trap, with the few existing streets lined with hawkers, and monks walking around on their cellphones. My advice: stay away from Putuoshan.

The best part of our little ‘adventure’ was our travelling companions. Alba, a sweet girl from Cuidad Real just outside of Madrid, and Anteres, a dark and dreadlocked hippie from the Canary Islands, made the trip worthwhile. Luckily for Kyle, they spoke really decent English, so we didn’t have to exclude him by speaking Spanish. We met them in Hangzhou during the World Cup Final, and spent most of our time together for the following week. They took us to a truly local restaurant where we sat and chatted with various Chinese people, one of whom bought us dinner. God they love to smoke and drink beer. Not unique in any way, but still, surprising, considering most Asian people (I’m sorry to stereotype) absolutely cannot hold their liquor. Judging from the photos we took though, this man is no exception, and he looked pretty rough by the end of things. He did more drinking than us by far though, cheering and clinking glasses with us every two minutes. It was such a good time, and we finally felt that we were in a genuine Chinese setting.

This is so terribly long! I’m sorry, I’ll go now, but more later. I’m sure most readerss stopped ages ago. I won’t hold it against you 😊

Gambe!

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