Luoyang
The bus to Luoyang was pretty straightforward, the lonely planet said the journey took ten hours and when we arrived at a bus station after about four, we couldn't understand why the bus had stopped and everyone was getting off. We decided to stay on the bus and they kept beckoning for us to get off. I went to the driver and showed him my ticket then said 'Luoyang' and he would point to the floor of the bus and go, 'Luoyang'. Then I got my phrase book out and said 'which bus for luoyang' (meanwhile a taxi driver was pointing to his car and going 'luoyang luoyang' (We ignored him as the last thing we wanted to do was pay for a six hour taxi drive). Then I showed them my phrasebook and they pointed to the phrase 'tell me when we get to ...'. Clearly they wanted us off the bus and the inkling came about, that we were possibly in luoyang! The taxi driver followed us and I looked up 'where' in my phrasebook and said 'we are where', and he goes 'luoyang'. So the lonely planet was incredibly wrong and we were in luoyang early.
It took us a while to find a hotel as the lonely planet recommendation had gone up in price by 50%. However we found a really plush hotel that they are halfway through building, that we are now staying in. It's a bit more expensive than usual (about a fiver each per night), but it's brand new with fake marble floors, very clean, nice towels and a mineral water dispenser.
Incidentally, the 'water coolers' here (comparible to those in offices in the UK) are common in peoples homes. However instead of having a room temperature and a cold tap, they have a room temperature and a hot tap!
One of the more fun supplies in the current hotel, along with the obligatory shampoo etc. is vaccuum packed underwear! There are these packages of tightly packed men and womens underwear wrapped in cellophane. They're a bargain at 66p a piece, I'm almost tempted to buy some boxers for novelty value (they're definitely not the sort of pants you'd want to wear - lovely pattern!).
Yesterday afternoon we bought our train tickets to Beijing. The station is very hard work as it's hot and crowded, the staff are impatient and unhelpful, most of the trains don't seem to exist, and it's all in Mandarin. The end result of which is we have tickets a day later than intended, possibly on the super-luxury car of a night train! Either way, it'll get us to Beijing!
Today we visited some stunning caves, that were much undersold by the lonely planet. It is 1.5km of cliff face covered with sculptures of Buddhas - ranging from two centimetres to sixteen metres tall. A lot have been looted or had the heads stolen (a combination of foreigners and the cultural revolution). This afternoon we visited a few temples and tomorrow we're off to the town where they invented kung fu!
That's all for now,
Ali
It took us a while to find a hotel as the lonely planet recommendation had gone up in price by 50%. However we found a really plush hotel that they are halfway through building, that we are now staying in. It's a bit more expensive than usual (about a fiver each per night), but it's brand new with fake marble floors, very clean, nice towels and a mineral water dispenser.
Incidentally, the 'water coolers' here (comparible to those in offices in the UK) are common in peoples homes. However instead of having a room temperature and a cold tap, they have a room temperature and a hot tap!
One of the more fun supplies in the current hotel, along with the obligatory shampoo etc. is vaccuum packed underwear! There are these packages of tightly packed men and womens underwear wrapped in cellophane. They're a bargain at 66p a piece, I'm almost tempted to buy some boxers for novelty value (they're definitely not the sort of pants you'd want to wear - lovely pattern!).
Yesterday afternoon we bought our train tickets to Beijing. The station is very hard work as it's hot and crowded, the staff are impatient and unhelpful, most of the trains don't seem to exist, and it's all in Mandarin. The end result of which is we have tickets a day later than intended, possibly on the super-luxury car of a night train! Either way, it'll get us to Beijing!
Today we visited some stunning caves, that were much undersold by the lonely planet. It is 1.5km of cliff face covered with sculptures of Buddhas - ranging from two centimetres to sixteen metres tall. A lot have been looted or had the heads stolen (a combination of foreigners and the cultural revolution). This afternoon we visited a few temples and tomorrow we're off to the town where they invented kung fu!
That's all for now,
Ali
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