On Motorcycles Without Helmet

After Baoding, I got onto a motorcycle without a helmet and went to the North Mountain entrance. It was risky, no helmet. It reminded me of days riding on the motorcycle with my dad when I was little. It brought back memories. I really enjoyed riding with my dad. Ihat was risky too, no helmet either or a toddler seat, my seat was the gas tank. But it was fun. I had the same motorcycle driver wait for me at the North Mountain and then drive me to the bus station afterwards.

North Mountain sculptures are about 100-200 years older than BaoDing. They were significantly different stylistically. In the prayer wheel cave, there were perfect looking beautiful, most beautiful images I have ever seen of Bodhisattvas. They were truly well done and mostly undamaged. It was breath taking for me. Lots of the images have been harmed, heads or hands are missing. This was unfortunate. I attempted to take photos even though it said no photos please and had a surveillance camera. It was cloudy today so the chances for good quality photos are slim in the caves. These images are different than Yungang Caves. I was amazed and was actually quickly over sensitized by all the beauty that surrounded me.

I then got onto a bus in Dazu, to get to Chongqing city, to get onto a train to Haihua to then transfer onto another train to Wulingyuan a.k.a ZhangJiaJie. There is a bus that leaves tomorrow at 1pm from Chongqing city and would take 15 hours to get to Wulingyuan. Since I didn't want to deal with sleeping in Chongqing in a cheap poor condition place and also didn't want to fork out the money to stay at a nice hotel, I decided to sleep on the night sleeper train, two in one with price and time.

On the bus from Dazu to Chongqing I met a Munich man and his Shanghai girlfriend on the bus. They just spent 5 days on a cruise on The Three Gorges. They showed me photos, and recommended I go on it. I think I will pass. I’m not sure why, but at least from his photos, I didn't feel as inspired as they were.

The Spitting Serenade

I woke up and decided to leave for Dazu to look at cliff cave sculpture. I had freshly pulled noodles Lanzhou style in Sichuan Chengdu sauce at a tiny shop across from the bus station. When I got onto the bus I noticed people were not sitting according to their seat numbers. My seat number on my ticket was for the front row, but I ended up in the back row above the exhaust pipe again. It has been my bus karma the entire China trip. The muffler is very loud, and being behind the end wheels, it’s much bumpier too. The DVDs being played on the bus were terrible poorly shot Hong Kong gangster movie. When the DVD was not on, terrible local songs that was obviously not the greatest hits that made any good charts was being blasted over the sound system. I had my ear plugs on the whole time. Although it was only a four hour ride, it was exhausting.

On the bus was a pair of grandparents and a grandson. It was interesting to see their joy in his presence. But the grandma's way of disciplining the child was through yelling and hitting him. It was weird. She had so much love for him but interacted with him the only way she new like he was a farm animal requiring lots of physical discipline and also verbal sharp sounds. This is quite common, I've seen this in Asia quite regularly. I saw lots of pairs of grandparents taking care of their grandchildren today everywhere and the child is the light of their life.

The bus did stop for a lunch break but I felt unwell and decided to stand outside on the lot while people ate. There was a woman who did this number with me. She, how shall I describe it, was like my dancing shadow. I could not seem to get away from her in this big lot because she kept following me where ever I went like a shadow. When I turned, she turned, when I stepped forward she stepped forward. But this really wasn’t the It. The stopper was her working on hacking up a spit at the back of her throat and nose and then spitting on the ground every other minute. It was really gross. I tried to get away from her and she ended up encircling me as I turn and spitting all over. It's as if she was trying to mark a territory around me. Either that or she trying to baptize me with her spit or something? I was sure there had to be a candid camera somewhere and that I’d be on TV at some point because this was too terrible, too gross, too funny, too good to be true.

It only took 4 hours to get to the nearby town called YoTing. I took the 9am bus, the direct bus to Dazu city leaves 12pm. I had to transfer bus in YoTing to get to Dazu that is 20 minutes away from there.. I found out the public transit there are not into time schedule. I was on the bus for another 1 and half hours when it only takes 20 minutes. The way it works is that the bus goes around, circles and circles and picks up people and there are no bus stops. The ticket person calls out for riders out the open door while the bus is moving. If I had known I would have went straight for a taxi. I ended up having to take a taxi anyways because the bus that picked me up and said it would drop me off at the gate didn't. It dropped me off at a central station that didn't have any bus that went to the gate from this station. I got on a taxi afterwards anyways, after transferring to two local public buses all telling me they go to the gate but then not. .

The cab driver wanted me to leave my things in the cab so that I would not have to take it to the gate and he would take me to the train station afterwards to go to Wulingyuan. I really did not want to part with my stuff just incase he runs off with my bag or whatever the other possible things that can go wrong.

I went to the ticket counter I was sold a ticket to BaoDing entrance and not the comprehensive ticket to BaoDing and North Mountain area too. So I had to later buy another ticket into North Mountain area. BaoDing's cave sculptures are beautiful. I had a great time. It was a small area.