Putoshan to West Lake

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We are up and away after another beige breakfast.Thee walk back to the ferry seems shorter than the walk out to the hotel.The ferry is again quite ful and wile we travel they play DVD's available for sale on the boat.They are a curious sort of karioke buddist chant recording with peaceful scenes as you follow the little white ball.
A bit of a confusing scene at the other side with some shouting between the bus driver and another man and us in the middle.Not sure what it was about but one man slaped anothers hand amid much yelling.Slinky stayed quiet and steered us to a taxi which I think was part of the issue but when we asked her about it she claied she did not know. The truth lost to us forever. The taxi took us to a busy bus terminal where we boarded an 'Autobahn' class bus an express with first class seatring and a bottle of water as we boarded.The trip uneventful as we passed many small farms along the way.The Chinese waste nothing as far as arable land is concerned with smal plots laid ut everywhere and more often than ntot a man or woman crouched in the plot weeding or harvesting.The bus takes us to Hangzhou then we taxi to oour hotel,a different one than our outbound trip.A brief rest and we are off to West Lake a lovely spot in the center of town.Manicured gardens wandering peacocks and pools of red carp make a very pleasant place indeed.Lots of people share the beauty with us .A boat trip is de rigeur here and ours is ornate and interesting taking us around the lake while slinky tells us of legends and history. We had not seen many foreign tourists for the past week but blended.After the lake we went to another temple,the Lingyin temple.Beautiful with more than a hundred buddas carved into the rocks of a mountain and some stunning gold buddas in the temples.The monks were praying and the sounds of drums and bells mixed with the scent of incense and sunshine made it a memorable and distinct pleasure for the temple weary traveller.
Getting a cab was a challenge after our visit as the cabbies were reluctant to head downtown to face the traffic at rush hour.We did find one however and were deposited safely at outr hotel.We parted company with Slinky at this point and Ann and I went to the UBC coffee shop adjacent to the hotel for a meal.Ann's stomach has been a bit iffy today so we decide to stay close to home.The meal is elegant served in a Japanese looking box and uncovered with flourish.The coffee is rich and needed after a few days without and the day ends.

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