China Stories,
Mad dogs and Englishmen
I paid you 200rmb only last week to repair it. You fix it properly this time for free, OK! ‘But the weather is to hot, all air conditioners keep breaking down in this heat’, he said, He had a point there, It’s been 36c for the last three weeks and now it’s forecast for getting warmer. The repair man fixed the aircon and left grumbling about not being paid.
It’s been a while since I last updated my blog. I’ve been very busy these last couple of months, well, I’m busy all the time really, and this heat doesn’t help either. So with my aircon fixed in my apartment and feeling a bit more comfortable it has inspired me to get down to the key board and give you another story. Whether you want it or not!!…..At this time of the year I’m usually wishing for winter to come so we can have some cooler weather and in winter I’m wishing for summer to come…….well I think we all do that.
So while we are on the subject of winter, I thought I would tell you about an experience I had last winter.
Jiangsu province were I live is pretty flat country, so winters are usually very mild with temperatures dropping not much below freezing and then only for short periods.
In February I had to go visit a supplier in Zhejiang province, which is about two hundred miles away. Zhejiang province is a mixture of lowlands and mountains.
My supplier is based in the mountain area. So when they knew I was coming they suggest I also go visit Yellow mountain which is a very scenic spot, especially in winter.
Okay! Said I, I’ll be visiting the factory on Friday then I have the weekend off so why not!
The plan was, early Friday morning our company driver would take me to the supplier, (about a four hour drive) then after the meeting the suppliers company driver would take me to yellow mountain (about two hours), there I would stay one night, then the following day I would get on a bus to Hanshan, stay one night and then Sunday I would catch a short flight back to Wuxi. Sound pretty good. But this is China and nothing usually goes exactly to plan.
Well the factory visit went well, business done!. We set of for Yellow Mountain. The company informed me that they had booked me into a good Hotel about half way up the mountain (sounds great).
When we arrived at Yellow mountain, the driver told me that the roads were a bit dangerous because of a new fall of snow the previous night. But his boss gave him strict instructions to get me to the hotel.
Just imagine a steep twisting and narrow mountain road with lots of very tight hairpin bends then covered in ice and snow, (I still shudder when I think about that road).
We finally arrived at the hotel (looked OK from the outside) the drive handed me my bag and said he had to get back quickly because they were expecting more snow so he left me there at the front of the Hotel. As I entered the Hotel lobby I noticed that all the staff was wearing overcoats, (not a good sign I thought maybe the Hotel is cold.). When I was chequeing in, I asked if there was aircon in my room. They said the aircon was switched off because there weren’t enough guests in the hotel to justify switching it on.
I said how many guests in the Hotel now, they said not many, I said how many. They said just me. I said get me a taxi! I’ll stay in the village at the bottom of the mountain.
No taxis come up the mountain at night, to dangerous they said. OK! I’ll walk down, after all it didn’t seem to take that long coming up in the car and I did remember seeing a sign for a Great Western hotel just before we arrived at the ice Hotel. Can’t be more than five hundred meters! So I started walking back down the mountain (well more like sliding really). What I thought was about five hundred meters turned out to be about two kilometers, just as I was thinking I had imagined the sign, there it was about one hundred meters ahead. Great!. Warm room, western food, like an oasis in the desert!.
The sign said “Great Western hotel group will open a hotel here in 2009”. Then it started snowing.
No! I can’t just sit here in the snow feeling sorry for myself, got to keep going!
.
I walked about another kilometer, and then I heard a car coming down the mountain, Great I thought here’s my ride.
I waived but he wasn’t stopping, I just throw myself in front of the car, better going quick then slowly freezing to death. He came to a sliding stop inches from me.
He spoke in a dialect that I’ve never heard before; I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. But the gist of it was. “Only mad dogs and English men go out in the midnight snow” I ‘m sure somebody said that before!.
Well! He turned out to be a great guy; he gave me a ride down to the village and found me a good Hotel.
The next day I took a taxi up the mountain to the cable car and from there to the top of the mountain. I posted some photos hope you like them.
The rest of the trip was un eventful really. Well I think that was enough excitement for
one trip.
Thought for the day:
Be thankful with what you’ve got, the alternative could be a lot worse...
