Orchestrating Our Own Mini Tour to a Taoist Temple

The next day we needed to get on a bus to Chengdu but our plan was to wait and take a late bus back to Chengdu. Hopefully since the bus runs continuously to Chengdu, it would be less memorable than the last bus ride I was on. We decided that we would go to the back side of the mountain that we had been to yesterday. The backside of the mountain was supposed to be less developed and offer more beautiful views. Emboldened by yesterdays success on the bus, we hopped on and showed the ticket tender the name of our destination in Chinese. He did not really nod yes or no so I wasn't sure that we were on the correct bus. However in the past Emily and I would just get kicked off when we were not on the correct bus so our assumption was that this must be OK. The bus kept filling up and in typical Chinese fashion making stops every ten meters. After about an hour, we had settled in rather comfortably on the bus, eating our fruit, munching on crackers, when he motioned for us to get off. I think we both had the deer in the head light look because we had no idea where we were and he motioned again for us to get off so we dejectedly gathered up our stuff and shuffled off.

Off the bus, a nice lady, a ticket tender for another bus was motioning for us to get on. We had no reason to believe that that wasn't the right bus so we naively got on. In ten minutes the bus took off and started careening up a steep mountain face, occasionally squeezing through alleys in villages with nice houses. Emily smiled gleefully clutching her pack, commenting that she felt like she was on a roller coaster ride. After another hour or so someone got on the bus, collected 20Y from us for the mountain and we drove further. Eventually we got out.

It started out poorly as we had to go through a large touristy town where everyone wanted us to sit down and eat. Then instead of walking down the road as everyone else was doing, we walked down a path that paralleled the road but it was really slippery, so we courted hip fractures and broken tail bones as we walked down the path. After another town with more people selling lots of stuff, we made it to the start of the stairs to the top. The stairs wound their way up along a gushing creek with huge boulders and lots of greenery including a forest floor carpeted with Selaginella and occasionally we would catch the scent of sweet flowers blooming. There were a few vendors and we even saw one guy offering bamboo rides to the top. To reach the top, we would have to have more time to be able to spend the night and unfortunately our time was at a premium. My camera batteries went dead too so I never really got any good pictures of this place, even though it was my favorite by far.

On the hike up, I had fallen in love with many of the wares that the vendors were selling, specifically they were selling creatures crafted out of bamboo that you could hang up. I decided to turn around a few minutes earlier than Emily so I could buy my bamboo creatures. After I decided they were the perfect gift for anyone, I started to worry that they might be sold out by the time I scrambled down all the stairs. In short I started gleefully buying bamboo creatures from every vendor in site. I bought a grasshopper from each vendor, then I bought 2 frogs and other unidentifiable bamboo treasures. I treated my bamboo creatures as if they were glass ornaments and every night they would get misted down. Then I salvaged a box that my lunch was in on our flight from Chengdu to Shenzen and put the bamboo creatures inside. Unfortunately what I did not know is that they are really disposable because once they get dry and shriveled up they don't look that good. Back on US soil, since I had taken such care getting it across the border and toting it around China, I hung it above one of my plants, but I think that if one of my candles gets out of control, it's probably going to start my apartment on fire.

Back to the Taoist temple--I also was hungry and had discovered potato balls deep fried in oil on a stick and then sprinkled with hot spices (probably loaded with MSG). The vendors were also selling these. I thought I finally had the money system figured out and offered the old lady what I thought was 2Y in coins. However there are several morphs of the 1 denomination in paper and in the coins and several morphs of the jio or 1/10 of a Yuan. So what I had actually handed her 2 Jio, not enough for the potato snack. Since I thought I was handing her 2Y, when she told me the price and I kept handing her my 2Y and she kept handing it back, I didn't understand what was going on. Eventually I got frustrated and went to the next vendor where to my relief an English speaking woman kindly intercepted and helped me out, translating for me what the problem was.

Back in town, Emily and I after some more souvenir shopping (I got useless sandals for 5Y and a couple combs) found our parking lot and saw the lady that had helped us get on our bus before. This time though we wanted to go somewhere else so a different lady put us on the right bus. Thankfully we were the first stop and had seats. The bus was so crowded that by the 3 or 4 stop, people were opting not to get on our bus and by the 5th stop, the bus was not even stopping for others. We were surrounded by people crammed in the narrow aisles leaning over us to hold on to a bar as the bus lurched down the mountain. We saw our stop and the woman in charge knew where we needed to get off so blessedly from our backseat position we did not need to get their attention. Amazingly enough though, I noticed that even with all the chaos of honking, collecting $, screeching brakes, etc.--even the faintest utter that I could barely hear (and I would be sitting beside the person) would not go unnoticed by the bus driver. We somehow managed to pull ourselves up and squeeze off the bus, shuttling ourselves off the the next bus stop. I was rather proud of ourselves for having managed to find the next bus without having to pull out our book or look confused. One of the best things about Dujiangyan was that taxis abounded and flagging a taxis was easy, there was no hand waving or chasing after a taxi, just standing idle on the side of the street warranted further investigation by a taxi cab driver. The rest of our self orchestrated tour was uneventful. We got on the right bus, flagged a taxi back to the hotel, collected our bags that the hotel had stored for free and eventually caught a bus to Chengdu (and I slept thru most of the bus ride).