Yakking It Up, Close and Personal

(Sandy)

First, we can’t believe it’s already March!

Today included a few interesting turn of events. The first being that our guide’s official company itinerary listed only the second leg of our two flight trip to Xian…so she thought we had a lot more time to explore before leaving for the airport. It was a good thing I chatted with her about the day’s events early in the morning. With the correct timing worked out, we left the hotel at 9am for a 20 minute ride to the base of Yulong Xue Shan (Jade Dragon Snow Mountain) to catch a very, very large shuttle bus that would wind its way up and around many unguarded hair-pin turns to a chairlift. The chairlift carried us further to about 3600 meters to “Yak Meadow”. We were all very excited at the expectation of seeing these amazing and beautiful creatures that give so much back to the people – meat, fur, bone, leather, Yak butter sculptures and tourist income (more on this later). So after a fairly cold 20 minute chairlift ride, we arrived at the meadow and NO yaks were to be seen anywhere. There was a tiny monastery off in the distance and we were told that we would have to walk further up the mountain to see the Yaks…no time for either. To help warm the chilled bones, some bought hot chocolate from an elderly woman manning the mountain-side counter which also sold Yak bone chopsticks, dried flower pods picked from somewhere on the mountain and Dove chocolate bars. When our guide, Diana, asked for just hot water, the old woman replied that it would cost 5 yuan! She stated that she was the one who carried the water up the mountain and payment was due for the effort. We jumped back on the chairlift to head back down the mountain to a spot that we noticed previously. It was a lovely green mineral-tinted lake/river that housed a tourist destination which offered Yak rides and picture taking…for a price. Of course, those of us who are enamored with Yaks wanted to stop, so we did, and lots of “cheesy” pictures were taken of us on Yakback. For me, it was the next best thing to seeing “Yak butter sculptures” which are evidently mostly in Tibet (I haven’t given up, yet, though). Alex, Lauren, Cassie and Alaina waded into the shallow water, which by the way, was where the Yaks were standing…watch where you step!

After the up close and personal special Yak moments, we headed back to the hotel to pick up our luggage and to eat a quick lunch at KFC! Alex and friends discovered how to say “no mayo” which made Alex very happy! There was no time to spare as we needed to get to the airport. At the airport we said our farewells to the driver and guide and headed for security. This process, we have discovered, is VERY random with no rhyme or reason to the varied searches that have occurred. We are always frisked, sometimes let through with liquids, sometimes not…sometimes asked to open a bag, sometimes not. Only once have I been asked to show my computer, but a certain bag of candy seems to send security into a frenzy. At one airport, some of us were wisked off in one “secure” direction and others in a different “unsecured” direction. It’s all very exciting and keeps us wondering what kind of an adventure we’ll have at the next departure.

And speaking of airports, our storyteller, Alex, now has new fodder for a great tale. While there have been many (accidental) legitimate reasons for having our carry-ons searched, today, Alex was asked to open his checked luggage! It appears that his newly purchased antique Chinese bayonet could not be transported even in checked baggage. Fortunately our guide was still with us and authoritatively took the reigns of the situation. Alex was forgiven, but the bayonet will meet up with us in Hangzhou via the mail with thanks to our guide.

Okay, so here we are ready to board the first leg of our flight and Richard (Viz’s Chinese buddy) confirms to us by phone that the second flight is delayed by 2 hours. No problem, we’ll eat at the Chengdu airport to waste time, we thought. Once we arrived, we discovered that our flight had been delayed even longer. When we tried to inquire about the rescheduled time we were handed free passes to a hotel and nearly herded into a group to leave the airport…which none of us felt was a good thing to do. We finally made our wish to remain in the airport understood and were directed to a KFC…yes, another KFC! We had the no mayo thing down AND there was ice cream, so everyone was happy. We found a cozy spot on the floor near a door and proceeded to make camp. I used a luggage trolley as a seat and found it quite comfy and fun…could wheel around a bit like a crab. During our wait, we chatted about our happiest moments ever and reviewed the trip so far rating events and guides from one to three. To be sure that we did not miss the rescheduled flight, we later changed our camp location to the gate area and discovered that many, many flights had been cancelled due to bad northeast weather. Ours was one of very few that was still scheduled albeit, very late. They even gave each passenger a 100 yuan cash refund because of inconvenience. Finally, after a six hour wait, we boarded the plane for our relatively short flight to Xian. It was great to see Richard’s smiling face waiting for us as we finally arrived at about 1:30am. He zoomed us off to the hotel for a good night’s sleep and suggested an 11am meeting time…thank goodness.


Talk to you soon….