Mount Jizu

---

Mount Jizu Temple

We were looking at a long day today so up at 6.35 for 7 'o' clock start to have breakfast of noodles and some unknown things to help us on our way. The one thing about Chinese meals is that you know the format of rice,noodles,cabbage etc but never know how hot the peppers are going to be until 2 minutes later and your palate shrieks out in pain.The first thing after breakfast in the lock up garage was to go up Mt Jizu by way of a 10 seater golf type buggy to the Gondola. Once out of the gondola about 300 steps got us to the top puffing and panting at 3,200m altitude. The temples up there were quite impressive with all the Buddha's on display and the ’Teapots’ where the visiting Buddhists burn incense sticks and all manner of coloured sticks whilst praying for something special. We saw many visiting Llamas from Tibet in their red robes. The views over the land from such a height was incredible with mountains and fertile valleys everywhere for up to 40 or 50k radius. Looking west we could see the Cang mountain range and Old Dali City, whilst looking South we could see the road travelled yesterday and reminded of the climbing we had done. We came off the mount and descended 11k down to the village at the foot where we had a group photo with a beautiful backdrop of a great archway and multicoloured flower beds at the top of the village. The lunch was in another typical Chinese cuisine, very basic with steel topped tables and sat on small primary school size chairs. Green tea in abundance, which appears to be de rigeur followed by all the various dishes and the rice last. I still don’t know why they do not have it first to put with the meats and vegetables etc. michael, our guide then told us that we should turn right down the road and climb up he mountain in front of us, ugh! The first mile or so was steady and then it got steeper and became an alpine pass with hairpin after hairpin. This is harder than then Alps since it is 500 to 1000m higher so sapping your strength through there being less oxygen in the air. Mary had a puncture as we were leaving the village so we waited a while whilst it was repaired before our second attempt at the hill.The bus stopped after a long climb and some of us fools thought that we were going to be descending shortly down to the Lake Erhai. Don’t be so silly, the road lead us through two more valleys with serious climbs through hairpin after hairpin and littered with landslides due to serious rainfall some time recently previous. Mary did not turn up when the bus stopped for coffee so Angus went back for her and repaired yet another puncture, cause still unknown, which is always worrying. Towards the end of this 68k ride we came across some quarries who had ruined the road with heavy traffic and had Littered the road with stones and debris which had washed out of their workings. It was at this point that I came across Patsy with her front wheel out and a flat tyre caused by a pinch puncture over the stones. A quick tube change and we were mobile again descending into fertile country growing rice, maize, and other green crops. Two miles of bumpy, potholed, dirt and stone road thankfully saw us at the hotel in Wase. A shower in the rustic bathroom and a quick 40 winks before dinner at 7pm. Dinner was good, if you like rice which I do, and back to our rooms to repair the odd puncture and then an early night for a well earned rest.

---