9 mountains - 20.5.11 (Day 3 - Shaolin's Kungfu!)

Slept better last night. I was awaken by the train attendant 5min earlier than my alarm clock! Reached Zhengzhou at 6! I have another new problem today. My phone was left with 27% but as I wrote this I realized I had a spare battery =] silly me!!

Zhengzhou was big, the capital of Shanxi province. I followed the south exit which led to two paths. The left goes to the public bus, while the right showed long distance bus station. Since Shaolin temple was 80km away, I reckon right was the better choice.

Ticket to Shaolin's stardom!

The morning was great at 20degree. I was in short. I came to the bus station exit. A lady kindly asked me where I was heading to. When I told her, she was very nice and directed me to get the ticket from the front desk. I walked over. Got the next departure at 7am for 26rmb. There was still time for breakfast! I saw a shop with beef soup noodle for rmb12. The other beside it was a franchise! So happy for getting things done so smoothly this morning, I opted for the more expensive "Mr. Lee" restaurant. I always got mesmerized by the waitress and ordered a set meal with cold dish, though I hardly eat any!! Even if I do, I couldn't finish them since the main dish was already a huge serving noodle. I was wasting food again, when I couldn't get anyone around my table to take my share.

Quickly gulped down my coffee and headed to the waiting area looking for my bus. It was already there. I hopped in and waited happily. My watch said 7am but no sign of moving yet. 10min later nothing happened still. I started to worry if they were waiting to fill up the whole bus!!! There were still more than 10seats!! Finally at 7:21am, I was relief we set off!! Zhengzhou has a lot of huge billboard covering all the high buildings. Half an hour later, we were still in the town area. Soon, the bus driver assistant started making announcement!! I thought shit!! I had boarded the pirate ship!! Around 8:40am we were at Dengfeng, a small town 15km away from Shaolin temple. We reached the first tourist spot nearby and the bus attendant told me they will only be at Shaolin temple around 11am! I asked the bus driver and luckily there was another guy going there as well. The bus driver was very nice and brought us there directly! Along the short ride, I saw huge tree, interestingly, on the middle of the road!! FanYincheng was from Henan. We chatted and travelled the rest of the day together.

Round 1, fight!!

Kungfu training session!

After getting our 100rmb entrance tickets, we walked towards the main attraction, Shaolin temple! The whole area was like a training ground for different Wushu schools. We saw many students busy practicing their kungfu skills.

Yincheng told me recently there was a news circulating around the Internet that a Shaolin master was caught paying for sex! Of course Shaolin temple denied this!

Tombs at the Pagoda forest

The best of Shaolin Temple!

When we finally reached the temple, we snapped a picture of the legendary place! But once we got in, it was really a huge disappointment!! Didn’t even come close to any other of the famous temples in China. It was so commercialize that there was even modern song at the background while the monks chanted their prayer!! I didn’t see any training ground!! The place was so small, we took less than 10min to make a round. There were only souvenir and expensive bracelet selling all over the place. Yincheng was asking a monk for lessons for his 8-year-old son but the monk's replies didn't even seem very convincing that he knew well. Kind of a snobbish instead.

I left them two for a while to wander around, looking for the hotels but didn’t see any as mentioned in the Internet! I asked a young monk how to hike up the Shaoshi Shan, the hightest peak at Songshan. He was giving the direction very politely but surprisingly he suggested the cable car instead and said the hike up was very steep and not recommended.

Soon, I met up with Yincheng again and moved on. We passed through the Pagoda forest, where the ancient monks were buried. Took a few pictures and headed to the Shaoshi Shan.

Shifu with his great pose!

A lot of drivers insisted to drive us there for 10rmb but my hike buddy shoved them away. Once we got away from the crowd, another approached us for rmb3!! We hopped on and reached the hiking point. It was 10:45am when we started. At a rest point, we met a master with a nice beard and a dragon blade like the GuanYu's! I asked if I could take a picture of him. He even gave me a pose!! Along the way, we saw a lot of worms. And I realized I like to catch sight of wild birds!!! There was no telephone line up here.

Around 12pm, we reached the top where the cable car station was. The staff said it was the peak and guided us to the view point. We reached a food stall and stopped for a bowl of noodle. When we started our hike again, the weather turned very misty. Sadly, we couldn’t see much of the great view!

Disappointed at the misty day!

Mt Saoshi's view!

We met a rubbish collector and she told us that her monthly salary was only rmb550! We continued the hike up and down slope along the side of the mountain, reaching the highest point only at 1114m. The peak was 1545m instead. A staff said there was a way to reach the summit but only the locals did, to collect wild plants for Chinese medicine. There wasn't any built-up path like we were walking.

Along the way, we started to feel rain droplets. It wasn’t cold even up in the mountain. I was in short and t-shirt all day. Soon the droplets became light drizzle and made the steps slippery. Shaoshi Shan was a rocky mountain. Whenever opportunities arose, I tried to snap a shot of the scenery when the view got slightly clearer.

Path along the side of the mountain!

Rope bridge to heaven!

We crossed a rope bridge but the mist cover all the view! After about 1.5 hours of up and down slope, we finally reached a temple and started to go all the way downward. It was 2pm. It was only a half an hour walk to reach the foot of mountain, but the stairs were so steep and torturing to our knees!! At the car park, my local friend started to bargain with the minibus driver to bring us back to where we came from at the Shaolin temple’s entrance. They started to talk like they wanted a fight! We managed to pull down the price to 50 from 80rmb. In the car, they began to chat like a friend again instead!! Luckily we didn't have to walk. It was a very long way.

On the way, we saw a huge snake in the middle of the road!! We met two young Shaolin students and the driver was nice and picked them up to the same destination for only 5rmb each! My energy tank ran pretty low and dozed off for the rest of the journey.

More Mt Shaoshi's view!

Yet more Mt Shaoshi's view!

We reached the main parking lot at Shaolin temple’s entrance again and bought our minibus ticket back to Zhengzhou. As usual, they always wanted to fill up the bus, though many started to complain. 3:20pm was promised. We took off at 4pm instead.

Around 5:40pm we reached the city. Departed with Yincheng and headed to the train station. The ticket office was amazing. About 40 counters, all fully queued up!!

My initial plan was to stay at Shaolin temple for another day to join one of the school for kungfu class. However, it didn't seem they had any of such offers for a foreigner. Perhaps, some other schools had at the town of Dengfeng. So, I decided to go to my next destination tonight via Taiyuan.

But hiccup happened, I couldn't get the night train I wanted and bought the next morning train that reach Taiyuan at 1:30pm. After that I had another headache to look for a lodging to spend the night. I settled down at an Internet cafe to do some reading and searched for hotels but was so frustrated I couldn’t find any telephone numbers at all after one worthless hour. Worried it will get dark soon, I decided to walk around and check out the hotels instead. After trying 3 to 4 of them, none of those cheaper options accept foreigners!!! I ran out of choice and patience and settled down finally at one just next to the train station for the amount way double the budget I set for this trip! I could have saved on this if I was sharp enough to take the 12:40am train instead!

Quickly went up to my room and had a shower to cool off the tiring day. The room was huge with two single beds. It was already 8pm. I started to venture out for food. Want to try some local Henan food, but I ended up in one food stall I didn’t even know how to order. The food was filling and wasn't too bad but I could had found something better!

After my stomach was satisfied, I was toying with the idea to visit a pub!! The book recommended one jazz bar nearby but needed to catch a cab. But I still had some work to do to plan for my next destination!! I started to count the hours I have with my fingers, minus off the precious sleep that I needed most. The maths didn’t work out. I reluctantly abandon the thought and went back to my hotel obediently after wandering around the town for a short while.

At 12:30am, I was too sleepy and went to bed. It was a sound sleep!