So the bus dropped us off and the driver directed us to the ticket office. We bought our little tickets and started to head towards the cable car, which we could see. The ticket vendor said no no no and delivered us into the keeping of a weathered old woman who took us in the opposite direction, around the corner of a building and motioned us towards a couple of weary looking horses. HORSE RAGE! Well not really, but I had no interest in getting on one of those fleabags when we could take the nice cable car. Back to the ticket man I strode and with much waving of arms towards the cable car and nodding and then waving towards the horses and shaking my head I managed what must be a minor miracle in China. A refund.
Phew, so no problem, buy the cable car ticket and up we go. Sarah just has to take a quick pit stop at the public toilet first. Coming back out towards me she is chased by a shrieking Chinese harridan. Now in most places in China it is customary to pay the random person sitting on a stool outside the dunny a few cents. I guess this is for their 'guarding' of the toilet, I certainly have never seen any evidence of actual cleaning going on in those cesspits. As much as I resent paying to take a piss, you get used to it. So Sarah fished out the usual amount and tried to hand it over. The woman shook her head, crossed her arms and demanded 3 times the normal price. Figuring this was just another "Let's screw the witless round-eye out of cash" moment, I took the note from Sarah, placed it on the woman's folded arms and turned to nip up the stairs to the cable car ticket office.
After a few steps I realised Sarah wasn't with me and turned around to behold her at the bottom of the staircase struggling with a screeching toilet-attendant securely latched to each arm! She shook them off but they attached themselves limpet-like once more. She tossed them again and by this time I had reached the scene and, nose-to-nose with the original harpy, told her quite strongly to leave my girlfriend alone(I think my exact words were "Touch her again and I will fuck you up") and flung more money at her. Well she screamed and swore and spat at us as her friend dragged her away, I spat on the ground between us and laughed in her face then turned and walked away. Sometimes I can't believe my delicate skills at bridging cultural divides. Not my finest moment. TOILET RAGE!
Well we got the cable car up through the lovely forest and the yak meadow was quite spectaular. A very Tibetan scene with a high plateau backed by snow-capped peaks, prayer flags, a temple, local costumed dancing girls, a few yaks to sit on and of course the mandatory few hundred metres of souvenir stands. The difference was that these girls all had a much more interesting catch-cry than the usual "Helloooo! Lookee!" Instead we were treated to "Hello! I love you!!!" about a hundred times from all directions as they exhorted us to eat yak meat skewers and various other unidentified roasted animals, most of which are probably on an endangered species list.
The best part of all was the shaggy Tibetan hind-leg-standing pooch
It was a fun time and eventually we hopped the cable car back to the base and sat waiting for a bus for the 45 min ride back to Lijiang. The bus attendant guy told us it'd be an hour wait, but then after half an hour he came over and let us know he'd managed to secure us a couple of seats in the back of a van (like a Tarago or Gary's toyota) for almost the same price. Sweet, in we hopped and off we went.
Oh dear, apparently he forgot to mention to us that the van and driver was rented by the lovely Chinese couple in the other seats. They were very sweet and smiley and offered us boiled peanuts constantly (never eat them, they taste like arse). They were also very earnest tourists and insisted that our driver stop at EVERY SINGLE CRAP TOURIST SITE ALONG THE WAY.
They got out and took photos of random man-made lakes with yaks standing around in them (above). Fair enough. Then they went to half a dozen poxy temples. They took photos beside a fake totem pole which looked like it had been badly constructed a few months ago. They insisted on stopping by the side of the road and taking photos with us in front of the mountains. They spent over an hour in an awful-looking faux-minority village theme park. Finally when we were about 5 minutes drive from town and desperate to get back they demanded stopping at some damned jade factory. When they went in we begged the driver to take us to Lijiang while they were inside. Thankfully she felt our pain and off we went. Well that 45 minute drive only took about 4 hours. Welcome back to Lijiang!
No comments:
Post a Comment