On Friday we left the comforts of Beijing and headed north into unknown territory. We had booked the train for a four hour ride to see one of many summer palaces of the Emperor. They are said to have left the heat of Beijing to find relief at this palace in the mountains.
We should have known that we were in for an exciting time right from the time we booked the tickets.....our butchering of the Chinese language almost got us tickets to Shanghai.
We did okay finding the train station in Beijing, but finding our hotel in Chengde was another story. The place was hectic and full of cabs, but our resident GPS expert said we could walk the kilometre and a half to our hotel. Little did we know that he had no idea where we were headed.
And walk we did! We were all carrying luggage of some sort so the walk was a little more difficult than usual. We chose to head out in one direction and soon found out that we were going the wrong way. We asked for directions at hotels assuming they would be able to speak some English, but we were certainly mistaken.
We were ecstatic when we found one woman who could speak fluent English....if only she understood how to give directions! Wrong direction completely.
After two hours, we had the location narrowed down and finally Alice spotted the hotel sign indicating our hotel was down a narrow alley. This was not one of those " I'm not staying in that" moments, but it was close.
They didn't have our reservation but we manage to secure two rooms for two nights regardless. And at half the price they had quoted us over the Internet. Why we would want to stay here two nights, I don't know!
I can't say much more about the hotel except in each room there were condoms and panties for sale! We are sure the pillows were filled with corn kernels and they weighed at least five pounds...so much for a pillow fight!
After trying to settle in, we caught a cab and toured a temple that was quite striking, but that seemed a distance memory only hours later.
When we got back to the hotel we tried to find a place to have a beer and a bite to eat. Oh what fun we are having!! Obviously this city does not see many western tourists as after an hour of walking we could not find anything. After Fred and I gave up, Alice and Jim continued on with the quest and the only thing they discovered was that we had booked one of the better hotels in the city!
We did have a few choices for supper....KFC, McDonald's or junk food. Tonight we chose junk food and I think this is where the diet starts. The only things I could stomach were a chocolate ice cream treat and a Sprite.
By the time we had finished our impromptu tour of this city we had walked almost 10 kilometres in 36 degree heat and we were tired. So tired, in fact, that our room wasn't as disgusting as earlier.
No comments:
Post a Comment