End of the Weekend

15th June 2009 - 10:28pm
 
Well this might be quite a long blog due to the fact I just haven't had a free second to write it since yesterday morning.
 
Yesterday was another fantastic day. We had an early start, leaving the hotel at 7:15am. We wandered around for a little bit before finding the bus station. We then caught the 2 hour bus up to the top of Emei mountain which was certainly a very windy and bumpy journey.
 
Having got to the top it was actually quite cold so they had this place that rents jackets which we did - mine seemed to be sized very very large.
 
From the coach station it was then a walk up lots of steps - this made the rented coats irrelevant as the walking made us boiling. The did have guys with deck chairs on sticks to carry people up and down.
 
At the top of the steps was the gondola we needed to catch to even higher up the mountain. The ticket kiosk was just a free for all, people pushing and shoving. Elaine somehow managed to make it to the front and get the tickets.
 
The gondola was thankfully over very quickly as they just rammed as many people as possible in, reminded me of the London Underground.
 
At the top of the gondola we sat on a bench for a few minutes where a random lady just plonked her baby down on Tasha's lap without asking and then took photos - very odd! She then went on to get the baby to kiss us all on the cheek (by the way... pongy baby!).
 
I'm starting to get the feeling of being a celebrity in the way people photograph you without asking or following you around. There was a tour group where we seemed to be the main attraction and not the summit.
 
After a lot more stairs we came to the summit where there is a massive golden buddha statue, and whilst very foggy the views were still breathtaking and well worth the visit and the trip to the top.
 
There was a viewing platform with a railing, although some people had gone round it and were standing on the edge of a sheer drop. One family had a baby which nearly ran off the edge, none of us could bare to watch,
 
From there we slowly made our way down again. The bus was even bumpier, and being on the back row we all felt quite queasy.
 
Having got to the bottom we jumped into a taxi to take us to Leshan so we could get the bus back to Ya'an. However by the time he found someone to translate what we wanted we had missed the last bus back.
 
So we decided to try another tactic and get the bus to Chengdu and go from there to Ya'an, so on a bus we hopped. 2 hour journey with an agonisingly loud Chinese programme on the tv.
 
Having arrived in Chengdu we again found the last bus to Ya'an was full! However a taxi tout overheard and was like "I can get someone to take you there for 26 pounds" - bearing in minsd this is a 2 and a half hour journey, so we hopped in.
 
After about 10 minutes the taxi pulled over and got out to talk to some of his mates and seemed to be unhappy about taking us. In the end one of his mates took us, so out we got and piled into the next car.
 
After about a minute the film music for 20th Century films started so Tasha in a jokingly way was like "wow, are we going to watch a film?" - he flipped down the passenger sun visor and there was a built in DVD player so we watched Transporter 2. Very surreal paying 30 pounds (we gave him extra) for a 2 and a half hour journey with a DVD player in the sun visor.
 
He dropped us off fine so all was fantastic. Having not had dinner on the Saturday, breakfast or lunch on the Sunday we were all starving. Most of the places to eat however seemed shut. In the end we went back to the one we went to the other night who seemed to be clearing up but were however happy to serve us.
 
We then caught another taxi back to the panda base, and caught up with those who has stayed behind to let them know we were all okay - so a long day!
 
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Today has been a pretty normal day, breakfast and cleaning as normal. Then we had extra cleaning to do of the roof as VIPs were coming. Something very ironic about me cleaning out cages for Chinese government officials.
 
In our breaks we just played cards again and finished quite early today. After dinner we had a walk down to the kindergarten to watch the baby pandas sleeping.
 
To round off the night Sue taught us a great new card game called Golf. Feeling a lot better, by the end of last week the panda work was getting a little monotonous but the fantastic and adventurous weekend has made me feel much much better.
 
So much for an early night...
 
By the way can someone email me and let me know my blogs are still getting up?
 
Thank you

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