Journey to Big Golden Lake

Christine's co-workers opted to take a weekend trip to the Big Golden Lake Geopark near the city of Tai Ning for their yearly outing, and they were sweet enough to invite me to tag along. I am so amazed by all the kindness shown to me! Nobody gets a trip to China like the one I am experiencing. Just a little disclaimer on this post... There are so many things I might not have understood correctly! My apologies ahead of time for all mistakes. 

The trip started with a three hour train ride... My first time on a Chinese train.  I got a good lesson in how to navigate to the train, and then the right car and the right seat without reading Chinese. Was a modern, fast train, complete with a woman  who cleans as you ride. As she passed, she stopped, took the trash bag out of my seat pocket, and opened it for me. Wonder if she does that for all foreigners who might trash the train.

I got to sit next to Sandy for the long train ride, and we had such fun time sharing  pictures, mostly of her almost 3-year-old daughter. Absolutely love this video of the little cutie using chopsticks for the first time.

 

When we arrived at Tai Ning, the young woman who was to be our guide and constant companion for two days was there to great us. Isn't she just the cutest with her frilly blouse, big purple purse and snazzy red sneakers? That was her hiking outfit, of course. She didn't speak a word of English, but was great at showing us around. The nine of us were supposed to be part of a group of 38 on a big tour bus, but much to our delight, the other 27 people didn't show. Never found out what went wrong for them, but we loved having the guide and the bus to ourselves!  

First stop was lunch at a restaurant that was very Chinese indeed:)  About ten dishes to sample from the revolving turn table. As you can see, our Chinese contingent is tucking in for some serious eating! The little green box is what they use for napkins, and you see this on most tables. It's really more like Kleenex, but I've gotten used to it and kind of like it. 

We left all of our luggage at the restaurant, to be picked up after dinner that night. I didn't understand that we would be doing major hiking carrying whatever we didn't leave at the restaurant, so my purse ended up way too full of stuff I was a little leery about leaving behind. Little did I know there were hundreds and hundreds of stairs going up the mountain! Got much braver about leaving stuff the next day. 

Our afternoon was a four hour boat ride on Big Golden Lake, interspersed with  hikes to the mountaintops. Loved enjoying the relaxing beauty from the boat as well as the challenge of the hikes!

 

I wonder what it would have been like if I had splurged $12 to get this regal ride up the mountain. Christine posed, but none of us were brave enough (or smart enough?) to actually have them carry us up the hundreds of stairs to the mountain top. An so up these stairs we went! At one point we saw a sign placed before a set of 300 hefty stairs that said, "Warm prompt: People with heart disease and high blood pressure walk carefully." And so just as a precautionary measure, I walked carefully:)

Chinese tours move at breakneck speed! No time for dilly dallying, no time to figure out the best angle for a picture before you snap, no time for the souvenir shop, barely time to buy a bottle of water to take with you -- it's just go, go, go, and don't miss the boat! So here are a few of my shots, but there are so many wonderful pictures I missed:(

There are red cliffs like this all along the lake. We passed several boats like this... Fun to see them all flying the Chinese flag.

The terraced fields along the lake are tea fields! All along the paths, there were signs explaining what we were seeing, and it was delightful to have them translated into English. Though a bit gets lost in translation, it's easy to detect the very poetic style of writing.

Best group of ladies ever to hang out with! I can't begin to tell you how kind and helpful and loving they have been to me. Seems like they are always one step ahead of me in thinking of ways to be helpful! From walking me across the stepping stones so I don't lose my balance, to carrying my bag, to letting me know every time they spot a clean bathroom, to picking out choice morsels of fish for me at dinner, to offering me the best dried mangoes ever:) I have become completely spoiled and probably will have a hard time readjusting to real life!

We had a fun dinner outside on the classic Chinese red plastic stools! On the sidewalk right in the middle of town. The Chinese gals chose twelve plates for us to share, and they spun around the platter as we picked bits and pieces of each with our chopsticks. So funny how you see these stools EVERYWHERE! They are all exactly the same size and color. The owners of our apartment left us a stack of them on the balcony of our apartment. And yes, if you come to visit we will seat you in one around our table!

Then off to the hotel. It was a lovely, clean hotel, with rock-hard beds and a cute little tea area in our room. I didn't have time to get my air mattress organized, so after a strenuous day of hiking, my seriously aching body had to settle for a very hot shower to assuage the hard bed. 

No dawdling in the morning on this tour -- bus pick up at 8:00 for another full day. Fortunately I brought my own coffee setup, knowing I wouldn't find coffee at the hotel breakfast included in the tour. The breakfast buffet was a spectacular spread of what I would call "dinner for breakfast." There were dozens of choices of meats and vegetables. How could there be that much food and be nothing that even vaguely tempted this American palate? Where was the coffee, fruit, granola, toast, yogurt, eggs, bacon, pancakes, or anything else you might expect? I finally settled on an ear of corn! My sweet Chinese friends filled their plates, and it was fun to watch them eat.

It was Sunday morning in the majestic bamboo forest, and my old Sunday school song "This Is My Father's World" kept ringing in my ears. I've always know this is my Father's world, but somehow walking beside rustling grass in the depths of a bamboo forests and hearing nature ring in cavernous Chinese gorges adds a new dimension to the world I know and speaks volumes about God's creative power and beauty! A very spiritual experience in this country where so many have still to recognize God as their creator. 
Throughout this park there are temples to a variety of gods. There is a lot of it I didn't understand, but I do understand how the beauty, power, and majesty of the park would lead people to think about divine revelation. This was the most elaborate place of worship we saw, and many people were lighting candles here. If you look closely, you can see the red candles on the deck.

This is a very old temple to the god Kuma. Here people worship this tree which is several hundred years old.

And then there are these sticks that people place between the rocks in the mountain. If you place a stick, it means that someone will be there to look after you. 
Sunday afternoon was perhaps my favorite part of the trip... Riding bamboo boats through the deep gorges. The nine of us were three to a boat, and our two boatmen and one boatwoman kept our boats close together for this expedition through lofty red cliffs, peaks, and pillars that stand up like a forest. They took turns singing as we cruised through a long tunnel. Never, ever done anything like this before! I tried to read up on how and when these deep gorges were formed, but something got lost in translation, and I only know they've been there for a very long time, formed from rough granite, volcanic, and tectonic landscapes. In the narrowest part, the gorge is only about six feet wide, and the precipices are very high indeed! Perfect ending to a perfect adventure.