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Published: October 7th 2009
Daniel helps me to book the Beijing local tour. Since he knows the manger so I do not need to go in to sign up, just bring the money at the meeting place. It is a 4 days tour, equal to 7 days from the States. The tours in the states always are misleading. A 7 days tour meet at the airport in the evening to take off count as 1 day, crossing the international daylight time another. The last days is getting up in the morning to go to the airport. Total of 3 days unproductive lost time.
This one is 4 net days, start 6:30am and return on 11:00pm. The whole tour cost 880 rmb plus single supplement equal to 1,100 rmb in this highest season of the golden week. Admissions and some food are not included. I never join a Chinese local tour before and I am not sure what I get into. Beijingers are more civilized than other part of China, I hope not the same kind we run into all the time.
The meeting time of 6:20 am at the local restaurant is trough for me. The subway start o run at 5:00 am
form the start point, but my stop is almost at the end of the south bound . So the first train will arrive at 5:38 am. I got on the first one and couples of transfers later and made no mistakes. Arrived at 6:15 am but I cannot locate any green flag as informed . They are not as organized as Hong Kong tour. I need to ask every tour bus and final found it is the last bus. When I got on the bus it is almost full, so I ended up sit at the last row, the bouncy one. Everyone look at me wearing a short sleeve T shirt.
The bus started on time at 6:30 am. There are a few pit stops, and the toilets are cleaner than the rest stops back in US. The people start eating in the bus all the way because they brought along bag and bas of food. I said to my self look like another typical Chinese local tour. However, I found out later, food is not included in the first day.
After 5 hours bus ride and some mountain roads we arrived at the Datong, Yungang Caves 大同-冈石窟.
It is pretty hot in the bus, especially the last row no air vent outlet. All the windows are fixed, the only outside air is the roof escape door use as air vent. But the Beijingers want it closed most of the time because they said is cold. I only one of the 36, what can I say.
The Yungand Caves is one of the four most famous “ Buddhist Caves Art Treasure Houses “ in China. I want to all of them, I think this one is most beautiful of all even is smaller. Only this one do not has the grand entry like the others, I cost 60 rmb to get in. Somehow I got the special promotion and got in for free.
After the local tour guide explain some of the history, there is still has about an hour of free time on our own. It is enough time to do whatever and the time of the day is perfect for taking pictures.
There is another 1-2 hours drive back to the town of Datong. This is a small town. Dinner is not included, and restaurant is hard to find in this town but
lot of other clothing stores and most of them are closed. I found out is the Mid-Autumn festival today that is why they are all closed. I ended up eating on the street with BBQ lamb stick and others. The hotel is no 3 stars as claimed by the travel agent. You can smell the cigarette odd when go in the room. It has the usually combination show with no show pan. No hot water, it only comes on a short time after 9:00pm. Breakfast in the hotel is worth 2 rmb per person as I figure. Very minimum food but no one complains.
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anonymous
non-member comment
Why you didnot input Chinese character Yun in the title? One of most popular Chinese pinyin input methods is google pinyin. You can download one and install it in your computer. It would be very easier to input Chinese charaters.