Bow to the Big Buddha

Today our aim was to get to the Big Buddha on top of the hill in yonder distance but before contending with that we were woken up with the sound not of waves in the ocean but rain hitting our balcony and villa doors. We had seen some lightening out at sea the night before but early morning you hadn't heard rain like it! By the time the sun had risen luckily the rain had stopped and it was a glorious day.

We asked the hotel after breakfast about how to get to the Big Buddha and they said you can just get a taxi and as there was a taxi service in our hotel we went to find out the price. It turns outs that to have a private car and driver for the day was 400 bhat more than just getting a taxi to the Big Buddha - so celeb treatment number 2 we were off to see the Buddha in a private car!

Our first stop up the mountain towards the Buddha was to a view point over looking the bays of Karon and Patong. It was a spectacular view which many a tour group were stopping at so there was the typical toot sellers and on this occassion there was also a guy with 2 massive volture like birds! The other wildlife was also massive, namely the spiders and lizards!

We then got back in the car and headed furtehr up the mount! Our next stop after thankfully driving past the monkey show was another elephant camp to trek some more! OK so we have dopne some trekking in Krabi but what the hell, this time our ride was called Cocao and he was pretty relaxed. This time the trek was on a pretty flat track again over looknig the bay. It was a chillaxed plod along, the guy even offered us a chance to ride the elephant like he did by sitting by his head but we politely declined and stayed firmly in our seat! The elephants here seemd happy and followed instructions a little more easily than in Krabi. We even managed to barter the guy down in price for our photo - well it was a good shot of us!

Our next stop is the Big Buddha! As we approached the white marble Buddha it grew in size until we were dwarfed by its stature. It's a free attraction though I did have to borrow a shawl as I had a strapless dress on. It is still a building site really as they are planning on developing the area around the Buddha and also in sie it. The Buddha itself is a magnificent feat, apparently it's not the biggest Buddha in the world but it's still pretty damn impressive.

There are a number of other Buddhas around the site including another pretty big gold one! There was also one still being built that was standing but it still had its head covered with mesh, it was kind of freaky. Around the area were a number of bells where people had written their wished and hung them up so everywhere you walked was a quiet tinkling in the background. The view was amazing -you can see why they picked it as a site for the Buddha. It was built to honour the king and done all through donations, that is impressive, we bought our fridge magnet here and a necklace pendant so we have now officially contributed to the cintinous build!

Our time here finished with a fresh snack of coconut ice cream at 25 bhat! It was yummy and definitely needed as it was ridiculously hot!


Needless to say we were pleased to get back into the air conditioned car! We then went to Wat Chalong - quite a large area of temples. All the temples we are visiting are special in their own way and are impressive to say the least. We were looking around as you do when we heard what sounded like cars backfiring/gunfire/fireworks! It was very weird. What it actually was were people paying to set off fireworks in a brick build cavern thing - that was definately strange. We also saw a wedding couple having thier pictures taken - he was definitly punching abouve his weight snd also suffering in this heat in his suit!

 

The day was passing by and we still had our private car. He offered to take us to Tiger Kingdom which sounds amazing - a tiger zoo - but after looking at the leaflet it is actually where you go in the cage and pose with the tigers! Err no way! However tame they say they are it's not even worth the risk! We aksed politely to bypass this so instead we headed to a jewellery store - again not by choice - it was axactly like China, full of jems which they try and force you to buy - not a fan to be honest. We headed back to our villa for some much needed R & R. Our private car was another celeb highlight for sure!

Tonight we headed to Karon for tea - we found a good restaurant on trip advisor and the food was fab - the area however was dead! The only real busy-ness anywhere was in a bar with a band playing and that didn't have many people - we did however see a guying walking an elephant down the street! Just like you'd walk a dog!! Only in Thailand hey!

Waiting in Wuxi

So after a little lie in and big breakfast we were off to Wuxi to go to the airport to catch a flight to Beijing. Look at their awesome public art!


We got to the airport in plenty of time, weather was nice, all was going smoothly until...we make it through security (i didn't get searched - yay) but our plane was delayed. And delayed. And delayed. Our gate didn't even have a plane at it! Turns out the weather was bad which means it was late leaving Beijing to get to us before going back. On its way to us we had massive storms which meant it couldn't land so it went to another airport. Several hours later, after a free drink and having read most of the guide book a plane appeared. It was not ours, boooo. We did then hear that we'd changed gate and was leaving at 5, over 3 and a half hours late. We were going to miss the opera and the Temple of Heaven and instead saw lots of Chinese people sitting and waiting. No ones fault, an act of nature but still, annoying. If we had driven it would have taken 14 hours so still better, but only just!

Once boarded the plane we did get an in flight meal which we did not expect. A can of some strange porridge type substance that was horrible, some what looked like pickled gherkin, shrimp crackers, artificial cake and a chocolate wafer. A very odd meal indeed. Eventually when we made it to Beijing we were greeted by 'Megan' our guide whilst in the city. Still raining i might add we boarded our bus to go to our hotel having missed everything from today. Turns out we are going to the opera after the great wall and ming tombs tomorrow so all is not lost.

Megan was very informative on our journey. She started by telling us about the name Beijing. Bei means north and jing means capital. This was the capital of new China. The previous capital was Nanying, Nan meaning south, so you had the capital in the south then the north. The jing is the character you see at the start of every Beijing based number plate so you know they are from here. She was also telling us about the layout of the city. The CBD is in the east and to the north you have silicon valley and i think she said the university. The south east is the BDA - Beijing Development Area for Science and Technology and to the west is the financial district. In the centre is the ancient town, hudong meaning alleyways. This looks like a crazy version of the Burgess Model.

Throughout Beijing they have 6, yes 6, ring roads in and around this city model. This city must be huge! She also said that statistics say that each month there are 58000 more cars on the road, crazy. During the Olympics they tried to control the congestion and pollution by not allowing people to drive their cars on one day a week, so number plates starting or ending (i can't remember which) with 0 or 1 on one day, 2-3 the next day etc. All can drive on bank holidays. Very interesting, takes me back to A level coursework and the nethos in Athens. Anyho enough of the lesson, we got here eventually.

Tonight we were left to our own devices to sort dinner, hmmm easy option - the hotel buffet, or hard - attempt a local restaurant. We as always make it hard. We tried pizza but the wave the guy gave us was goodbye not hello so we went over to Sizzler. After somehow making the guy understand we wanted food we were seated and ordering steak teryaki medium rare - oh yeah i managed it. We went back chuffed we braved it alone!

Rickety Rickshaw Riding...

Very early start today ready for our 8am rickshaw ride! Considering we laugh at the tourists in the rickshaws at Covent Garden we must have looked a right sight for the locals - 14 rickshaws riding along the road. We first took the rickshaw ride to the park. Honestly, at one point the cyclist was driving into head on traffic! We arrived at the park to a group of ladies fan dancing. Wandering around there were people doing Tai Chi which Tracey says is easy to remember by motioning a circle to show the watermelon, divide it in half for you and half for me! Good way to remember it! There were people dancing, aerobics and one lady in a baby pink Chinese suit doing some kind of Tai Chi with a sword - she was amazing and looked exactly like a character from street fighter or tekken. Definitely in kill bill training mode - wonder what her mission is?

So after this relaxing time in the park we re boarded the rickety rickshaw for a ride to the manic market. And what a market it was! Fruit and veg as you walk in, then meat at the back including trotters and chicken feet and in the back corner live chickens and birds - you could chose your own. We went for a walk around the fish section - all still alive - was so busy looking at a bag of frogs trying to work out if they were alive or dead that i didn't spot the fish trying to escaped and jumped out of its tank to another covering me in fishy water! Ewwww smelly, oh and the frogs were alive! The fish later escaped to the floor and had to be rescued by someone on our tour. It was now time for our last leg of the rickshaw ride back to the hotel. Our cyclist was just as risky as the other legs of the journey though i did feel sorry for him, at one point he got off and dragged us along the road. He earned his tip for sure - don't think we actually gave him enough!

We then went to a silk factory that was actually quite good. We saw each stage of the silk making process from the silk worms chomping on the mulberry bush leaves like the hungry caterpillar, making their cocoons, sorting the cocoons into good and bad ones and removing the twins which are extremely large cocoons, then the machine that heats them to kill the pupa then the machine that finds the end of the silk thread and winds it around a real ready to be used to weave. Interesting really. Then another person soaks the twins and removes the double pupa, then stretches the cocoon over a stand, this is used to make the silk duvet as its too hard to find the end to use for clothing and fabric. The shop was good too, had some trendy gear and some not so! Bought some bargains for pure silk.

Tiger Hill was our final stop today. Named so due to the brothers that founded it as Tiger was their surname. At the peak of the hill was a 7 level pagoda - which leans slightly, it is the leaning tower of Pisa of the east! The leaning tower of tiger, ha. Just as we were leaving the peak we heard a massive rumble, then a flash, then another rumble. Oh dear! We walked down a little when a few spits of rain appeared. Wendy decided we should pause just in case - wise move - it hammered it down. Constant thunder and lightening for what felt like forever. Tracey is saying this is a regular shower but the building we were sheltering by started to flood! That's never just a regular shower! Eventually it eased off and we made it back to the bus before it started again! We have now truly experienced the Chinese climate and the jack in a pack was definitely the best £6 spent for this holiday!