Let's start in Nanjing. It was a while ago so things are a little muddled, hence the lack of chronology in this entry!
We went to an Irish bar. It was rather quiet and our night was cut short as my flipflops broke. Gah. I had to hop around on one foot but not before attempting to sellotape and staple them back together. Instead we came back to the hostel, Craig cracked open his rice wine, whereas Izzie and I stuck to beer and we played the dice game on the rooftop. It was a good night. We headed to Purple Mountain also. There were a few navigation problems. The taxi dropped us off at Sun Yat Sen's mausoleum, however Izzie and I have had quite enough of him in Guangzhou! We eventually found the cable car to the top. We amused the rare other passengers with songs or Craig practising his chinese, the extent of which is currently 'I'm kidnapping you'. Oddly enough a taxi driver politely declined this request. Anywho, on the way down from the mountain we took a longwinded route and half thought we would end up in the middle of nowhere!
That may have been the entire activities of the day. We attempted to get a train to Huangshan but it didn't exist so we had to come back to the hostel. They were most surprised to see us again. We did make it onto a train the next day. That train wasn't the most pleasurable experience in the world as it was lacking in air-con. It was 39 degrees! Much too hot to be sat on a stuffy train. On the plus side, Craig and I worked through any awkardness. His apology for sulking helped. Eventually someone on the train fixed the fan so I spent the majority of it sprawled out on the top bunk where I could make as best use of the fan as possible. We did have a nice moment sticking our heads out of the window, when we suddenly realised that we could see stars and constellations by the dozen! It's been a while, normally pollution blocks out the stars so we were very happy.
We took a very long, expensive taxi ride from the station as we had missed the last minibus to Tangkou at the foot of the mountain. The hotels were all booked up so we stayed with a family run sort of hotel over a restaurant. The family loved having us. Over lunch the next morning, we spent a long time entertaining a baby boy. He was in fits of giggles from our silly antics and faces, so much so that he eventually wet himself. That made us giggle!
After this we set off for the easiest Eastern steps up the mountain. It was definitely a mistake to take our backpacks with us though. Climbing a mountain with backpacks in the heat was tiring work. Izzie gave up after 1km or so and went back down to get the cable car. Craig and I perservered with much laughter and encourgaement from those descending the steps. We eventually made it just as I felt my legs couldn't take anymore without eating first. I ate a massive dinner! It was also the most expensive meal I've had in China after the one the next day. We went to bed fairly early as sunrise on the mountain is a must.
Izzie woke me up in the middle of the night to start waffling about fires and flames. It turns out she sleep talks! I left the hotel around 4.30am and walked a kilometer to a peak to watch the dawn. It was freezing, but I made friends with a bunch of chinese people there. I went straight back to bed after that.
Craig hadn't slept very much so I refused to let him hike down the Western steps, which were twice as long and steeper. He begrudgingly gave in and took the cable car agreeing to meet us at the bottom.
So Izzie and I began our descent. Oddly this included climbing up to the highest peak in the process so it wasn't much of a descent to begin with. We awarded ourselves with medals at the top.
At a very popular view point, we distracted a tour group and became the object of photos for a while. A queue actually formed. We laughed it off. We passed through 'gleam of sky' a very narrow, incredily steep set of steps between some sheer rock faces. We had to battle the torrent of tour groups coming up but we made it in the end.
We were adopted by a tour group at one point. They showed us the right direction, told us our path was closed for maintenance, gave us a map and set us on our way. Coming down one side we saw a very very steep set of stairs ahead of us and hoped we would not have to go that way. A group of chinese people ran past at this point heading for these steps encouraging us to go with them. We told them they were crazy. Somehow, I got it in my head that I wanted to climg it though. Izzie stayed at the bottom with our bags and I went off with the Chinese people of a 4km, 1.5 hour hike (I didn't realise that at the time!!) up to the second highest peak. It was hard work. The Chinese people kept telling me I was the best and how proud they were of me.
When we made it to the bottom we could see that dusk was on it's way and with 7km still to go, we had to move. I was extremely tired yet reluctant to rest. Darkness fell pretty quickly especially after we were then under cover of trees. We covered the last 5km in under 40minutes wuithout stopping once. I was ready to collapse. We actually thought we had further to go until we saw Craig waiting. I have never been so happy to see anyone. We grabbed the last taxi who again couldn't find a hotel for us so resorted to Mr Cheng, a man recommended by the Lonely Planet who speaks excellent english. He fed us, booked our bus tickets and found us somewhere to stay. He had been warned about the stupid Brits who took their bags up the mountain. Massive lol - getting a reputation!
We got up early in the morning to catch a bus back to Nanjing. Our plan had been to get a train from here to Guilin, however, nothing goes to plan. There are no train tickets to Guilin until late next week by which time we plan to be in Vietnam. We came back to our hostel. They laughed when they saw us checking in for the 4th time. We immediately set about laundry. Everything but what I was wearing went in. I'd had to come down the mountain in dirty shorts as only my skirt was clean!!
We thought about our options and have decided to stay put here in Nanjing.
Yesterday afternoon we went shopping, clothes shopping. My luck with clothing has not gone too well. So far the list of broken items is as follows;
1 dress
1 pair of shorts
2 flipflops
1 top
These are just the ones beyond repair. Others have been fixed by my sewing kit. Not great huh!
We went out for a Mexican. I saw a poster for it and had a craving for my favourite kind of food! It was a really good meal actually, lots of veggie stuff so I left stuffed! Izzie went to bed pretty early, but Craig and I plotted. Today is her birthday. We bougth her a number of silly presents wrapped in newspaper which are being distributed throughout the day, we have been planning a surprise party with the hostel staff, and generally getting lots of stuff ready for some fun tonight. It does mean that we have to create lots of distractions for either Craig and I to disappear but we managed it. I took her out for lunch today and we all went for a massage with a German girl from our dorm. That worked out some of the tension in my muscles! I'm excited about tonight now. I've been doing my best to spoil her since she's away from home. We wrote a birthday mesage on the wall for her. I think it's going down well =)
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