Yuanyuan Hotel Wutaishan

Wutaishan was one of our greatest disasters to date.Hee and there's been a few. I booked a hostel which gave directions to Wutaishan bus station but was in fact in Nanning- a whole other provence. Oops.<br>Pretty place, once we'd finally checked into somewhere in our price range. It was the coldest place I've ever been. The water in the river had frozen solid! We had pot noodles in bed and tried some rice wine, (evil smelling stuff) and quickly got on a bus out of there! <br>Love Lucy xxx<br>

To save a bit of money we decided to travel with the locals on the 'hard sleeper' class on the train to Datong, and to be honest is wasn't too bad. There were 6 beds instead of 4 in each compartment, each bed was just a wooden platform with a blanket and pillow and there was not enough room to sit up but the 6 hour journey was pretty good!! We were the only westerners in this class so we felt like celebrities with all the ...

... vesnicky. Vyrazili jsme nejprimejsi cestou kamenim a bodlacim a shora se za nas modlil mistni mnich. Bucel jak sirena. Plan byl, ze po par kilometrech odbocime na zkratku a dorazime akorat za svetla. Bohuzel mraky sestoupily o par set metru nize a tak sme videli prd. Zkratku jsme proste nenasli a tak nam nezbylo, nez jit delsi cestou. Bohuzel cesta mela celkem asi 25 km k nejblizsimu autobusu a zbyvalo nam pouze 3 hodiny svetla. Ve chvili nouze ...

... damicek z Evropy) :)<br> Po dlohe chvili cekani kdy kluci neprichazi a majitele uz pomalu uklizi hospodu se rozhodujeme platit (dve mala jidla a dve piti) Kdyz nam prinesou ucet 130 yuanu me malem trefi slak (jedna se totiz asi o 2-3 nasobek bezne ceny) Nasleduje chvile tezke hadky a smlouvani. <br>Vyzaduji cinske menu, kde jsou ceny za jidlo cca 20yuanu. Nasleduje hadka, kde na mne cinanka krici cinsky ...

... oui parce qu'ici ca baisse en bas de 20 degres la nuit et meme si ca peut vous ecoeurer d'avoir des temperatures similaires en ce moment a Montreal, nous on est tres satisfaits!), et le village est enrobee d'une grosse odeur de charcoal a briquettes en permanence.<br><br>Le voyage de bus depuis Datong jusqu'a Wutai Shan etait lui meme completement impressionant, encore pleins de ces petits villages ou les gens vivent dans des trous de roche. Ils ont aussi transforme les montages en ...

... and get serious about religion.<br> <br>4 temples later, a horse ride and Alex climbing the money temple stairs, tiger skins, cat and fox fur on offer in the market, some terrible food and the most beautiful, friendly Monk who invited us to listen to him playing his flute we had had a magicaly experience in WuTaiShan and were seriously comtemplating giving Buddhism a whirl we were ready to leave...<br>

... fairground atmosphere that seems to surround anything that might be of possible interest to anyone in China (people selling brightly coloured junk for extortionate prices, tour guides, 'english students' that sort of thing), though that might just be because it was so damn cold. Whatever the reason was, I welcomed it. It wasn't the town I came to visit, though. It's been a good few months since I've had the opportunity to get out into the country, and ...

... is a very old walled town, one of very few left in China. There are no cars or motorbikes allowed inside the walls during the daytime which means almost complete peace. We got warm friendly smiles from everyone there. We went for a nice dinner with an Aussie bloke, his Chinese teacher and an English lad Pete who we met at our hostel. Got to see Chinese people at their best tonight ...

... out how to survive the next 7 hours. From this position, and unable to really turn my head, I spotted an adorable baby on the seat beside me and in my slowly improving Mandarin, went ahead and told the parents how cute she was. Next thing I know, baby is in grandpa's lap, I'm extricated from the crush of bodies and pulled into her seat, and the parents are feeding me. Despite some feeble protests from those that felt they deserved the seat more, the family ...

... It was really interesting to see the construction and walk through the hallways and on the balconies overlooking the valley. Later we climbed the staircase, walked through the dragon's mouth and came to be on top of a hidden dam, the other side creating a nice lake. In all we spent about two hours there and in town we had a fun dinner and then went to the hotel and watched Lin Jia perform acrobatics and gobbled up all the available candy we could find!