Tuesday 16 November 2021

The mountains of Pujiang (Zhejiang)

        One thing that I had heard about Yiwu was the abundance of small villages that surround the city. I did not really know about other cities closeby until I bought a bicycle.

         Once I found out about a city about 30 km from Yiwu (called Pujiang)  , I noticed many of the shops had the crystals (水晶) sign. I heard that this place was the place to find crystals for many years until the government decided to crack down on the extraction of the crystals. 

          The place itself presents an interesting cycling challenge.The uphill goes on and on (or it does if you are cycling the  journey.)


Getting some energy  for the cycle
豆浆 , 油条 and 牛肉包子

 

safety first when go- karting!

The area of the mountain contained many things. One can go go karting, paragliding , trampolining or just have a nice barbeque.

paragliding would be nice if I was not scared of heights


One can see a brave paragliding soul in the
centre of the picture



preparing lamb for eating around lunchtime.

I will leave it for the next time I go here.

Where am I?
Oh Yeah, the flags are EVERYWHERE

lots of things to do...including archery (射箭) 




Now, I know

         Going up the mountain is an experience. I must remember to always bring a stick.Having a stick can prevent an awkward situation like losing my balance.

a flower at the bottom of the mountain



A kickass flower garden near the entrance



Always room for more flowers


      Anyway, what about the top of the mountain. What is the view like in the rarified atmosphere?
Need another break *gasping for air*



Not an awkward looking photo at all.



King of the castle*
* If the castle is a small rock 


almost there



Green in all directions



                                                                   The tree of knowledge
                                                 It makes me thing of a giant  Bonzai (盆景)  tree



Follow the yellow brick road.



Nice pond at the bottom



All roads lead to the exit



That yellow brick road guided us the whole
way down the mountain.



Thank God I brought a windbreaker




There seems to be a lot to do here but
the climbing / walking up the mountain is always the best.

Coming back into Pujiang after leaving the park.
It is downhill all the way. 
This road to nowhere helps the lorries that are not able to stop after going so fast down the mountain.


The traditional way to grab some rice in the restaurant.



                                                         
                                                                                         Egg, meat and 2 veg.
                                                                                                     nice



Tuesday 17 August 2021

Going to the big Ewenke village [Dayan (大雁)] and finally making it back to Yiwu

                   So the plan was to try to go to Dayan (大雁) for a few hours before grabbing 2 planes to make it back to Zhejiang before the whole place went on lockdown. Rumour had it that there was 2 positive cases , 1 in Shenyang and 1 in Dalian in the recent past. The initial spread of the disease started in Nanjing so I could not take a train back as it would have passed through this city and nothing was allowed to go through here anymore.  As I had passed through both Shenyang and Dalian , my health code mentioned this.On returning from Manzhouli , I bought a ticket at Hailar train station and waited for the train to leave (around 8 A.M.) 

Train timetable seen at an ungodly hour

                 I hopped on the correct train. (Note: To the uniofficiated , getting on a train here involves initially buying the ticket, waiting at the gate in question. Then as the train approaches wait for the queue to slowly morph into an essential free for all (usually with me at the back showing a ticket inspector that I do not have a 身份证 ,only a passport. Usually , the inspector looks at my passport like it is cryptonite , waves his / her head in a manner indicating he/she has never really seen an irish  passport before but everything looks OK , so I get waved onto the platform, I find the correct carriage , sit down in my seat whereupon an other inspector checks my ticket again.)) This time it was different. I got to my seat and as the train was about to pull out of the station, the inspector beckoned me to anither carriage that was people free. Then she proceeded to ask me questions such as  where was I going? How long was I going there for? When was I coming back to Hailar? Did I have the correct visa stamp? What was I doing in China? etc...... To be honest she was friendly enough and I got the whole carriage to myself for the duration of the journey (about 1 hour) but the continuous asking of the same questions was really starting to grate...(especially the one where I was asked when did I arrive in China and have I been here continuously since that time.)

I wonder if there is always 1 carriage that is left passenger free? 

       Anyway, the inspector ushered me out of the train at Dayan station , I then realized that another guy was waiting there , ready to ask THE SAME QUESTIONS at the station. I had to wait there for 20 minutes while they needed to do some background checking. They let me leave the station on the proviso that I had to come back to the station at 4 P.M. to take the train back to Hailar. To be honest, at this point, I really had no intention of staying a long time at this place but being warned by about 5 people not to stay convinced me to keep this walk very short!

                I started walking and after 10 minutes, I got a call on the phone. The police wanted to know where I was in relation to the train station! Was I north, south , east or west from the station? Now, I really did not have a clue how to answer that one, even in places that I know well. (So I just told them that I was on a small road close to the station.) I waited for the police car to arrive, whereupon they told me that I could not stay in the local hotel (I was super , fine with that. All I wanted to do was have a quick walk around the place!)

The train station was built right in the middle of a field
Nice field, though


How do I know north, south east or west from here?
Hmmmmmm

This is a nice shop ..... for panda's with free time.
I was starting to believe I was a panda right about......now.

Nice wooden store for buying iron pots

      I walked for about a half an hour and decided to get some local food with milk tea.  As I started eating the food the police called again. They offered to escort me around the place but I was content to just relax for a while.
The beef in the 饺子 tasted like the real deal

 It felt like there was a new town and an old town. I walked into what I perceived was the old part of the town and the houses seemed like rows of houses you might see back home. Some of these lookked abandoned. It felt like a bit of a shame as they looked like sturdy abodes. 
Old school houses
Eventually I got to the end of the village and decided to rest for a few minutes in the sun. I had not had a massage in years and I thought it might be a good idea to get a neck massage.

Gathering the thoughts

Feels like the countryside back in Ireland.
Now, where is that old pump?

Looks like the center of the old village

I went into a message place where I asked for a neck massage. The guy gave me 30 minutes of a massage to my neck that I had NEVER experienced before. I have had massages in China and Thailand before. The Chinese massages were always calm and relaxed. This one was anything but that! It definately helped my neck though. I guess they guy was trying to get some blood flow to the neck.  I reckon he succeeded in doing that.
Anyway, I decided to head back to the 
train station. This place was nice to walk around for a few hours but the amount of people that asked me questions was beginning to grate. Also, I started wondering about the journey home and should I get another test before boarding the planes. 
                      The visit to Dayan was short but nice. The people seemed cool and I think the police were glad to see the back of the foreigner. To be honest, they did apologize to me as they said that they had to ask me the questions during this time to protect everyone.

The infamous Dayan sunflower

          So I grabbed a train back to Hailar. At the entrance to Hailar station, I tried to explain to the guys at the exit that I was only coming from Dayan. They noticed my health code mentioned that I was in Dalian and told me that I had to go from another test.... I was a bit sad about that.  It was very confusing as there were 14 people shouting at 2 guys trying to organize who was doing the test. At the end of this a guy came over to me and asked me where I had been. I saw Dayan and he asked to see my ticket. He just shouted me through the exit. I was free!!!!!! for about 1 day. I started to think if I needed another test anyway as the airport personel could also stop me leaving the province or entering another province.
I decided to book a ticket and then go to the hospital the following day before getting the plane.
A potato cake

             I was able to book a ticket from Hailar to Beijing and then from Beijing to Hangzhou. I had a quick check online and I saw that I could get a bus from Hangzhou back to Yiwu (and the grab a local bus back home.) The booking of these tickets was  relatively painless. Now all I needed to do was get myself to the hospital!
             I knew where the hospital was located due to my initial encounter at the train station (The Baidu maps app. is a lifesaver.) So, I walked to the fever part of the hospital and the woman shoved the cotton bud down my throat as well as up my nose (but not at the same time. That would have been mightily sore.) ) She told me that I had to wait from that time (8:30 A.M.) until at least 5:30 P.M. to receive the results. I wanted to head to the airport as early as possible so I asked her if it could be completed a bit earlier. I might as well have asked her to give me all her money. Her response was ..... are you still here? There are more people outside. 
           Ah, service with a smile 😁
           Anyway, I walked around the place and came back there at 5:30 P.M. Nothing was ready so I had to tell them that I needed the form before I could go to the airport. They politely told me to sit down and wait. So, I waited until 4 others had been seen to. Then the woman gave me the test results ........ of a guy called Jun .....from Korea. I told her to search for my other name (Phelan) Success! And I was on my way.

The first and second test results


Leaving the double horse headed bridge at Hailar for the last time

Nice view from underneath the bridge

Bye bye sweeping landscapes and cool breezes.
Time to head back to the heat.

Not sure if this is a Chinese / Russian / Mongolian tradition.


Hailar airport
     
         I had no problems at Hailar airport. We just needed to obey the 1m rule and everything was fine after that. I waited in Beijing T2 for my bags, grabbed them and there was already a bus there to get me to terminal 3. I had to check in my own bags at Beijing airport. Thank God there wass a woman who was there to help me at the self service desk. I will remember to to check in the next time but it still feels a lot nicer when someone is there to greet you and take your bags. With seld service, everything kind of becomes robotic.
          The flight from Beijing to Hangzhou was grand. I got off, grabbed my nags and tried to find the entrance to the bus terminal. It was easy enough to find. Then the journey home on the bus took about two hours. It was a long time ago since I had taken a coach but the road from Hangzhou to Yiwu was mostly highway so it was quick and easy. 
           It was nice to get home but once I got home I was advised to take my temperature again. Apparently there was now a case in Hailar and Hailar was now a medium risk area so I needed to monitor myself. So, I am in the process of taking my temperature every morning and afternoon as well as giving  my location at those times to the local police. Keeping a virus away from people can be a tricky thing.

Sunday 15 August 2021

Hailar to Manzhouli (从海拉尔到满洲里)

          I had heard that Manzhouli was right on the Russian border. From this travel experience I did notice that it was much harder to get a place to stay when I was visiting border town areas. Some hoteliers  would tell me that their hotel is not of a high enough standard to allow foreigners to stay at the hotel. So, I wanted to get to Manzhouli early in the day before finding a plce.

         I gave DanBa and his wife a call to tell them that I was going to grab a train as early as possible and his wife told me that she could drop me off at the local Mongolian restaurant before going to buy some vegetables.

        That was cool and I got the chance to taste some Borsch before grabbing a train.

Milk Tea , rice +  beef and some Borsch (俄式汤)

       I took a slow train to Manzhouli  and had no problems getting out of the station. I had the usual taxi drivers asking me where I wanted to go (despite not knowing where I wanted to go). I decided to head in the the direction of a certain hotel in hope that they would allow me to stay there.

Sun setting on Manzhouli station


A bird enjoying the road that encircles the city
   
      I was able to find the hotel quite quickly and I asked the owner of the place if it was OK to stay there. She said OK so I proceeded to get the vaccine report, the Nucleic acid report, My visa stamp, my passport stamp and my money out. Then she noticed that I was not from China (To be honest, I don't think I look THAT Chinese. Maybe she had lost her glasses.) So, she thought that there might be a problem considering I am a foreigner. She rang a few people and they all told her that foreigners are not allowed in her hotel under any circumstances. 
         To be fair to her, she rang around asking other hotels if they accepted foreigners. I told her to stop ringing after she rand a third hotel! I told her that I had a tent with me and I would sleep there for the night. She told me that I could come back in the morning to use the showering facilities if I wanted.  This was kind of her but I did think that I better find a place to throw up the tent before nightfall.
            After a good period of time, I was able to find one of the local parks and itch up the tent there. I could still hear the cars on the street but it was a place to put the head down for the night, anyway. 
Wow, this place really lights up at night


Eiffel tower (with a Chinese / Russian influence)

Setting up the tent at night is a tricky business.
Thank God for the moon


Morning time arrives quite early in the north of China!


Nice decor at the front of this building


The sun seems strong over here.
Now where is my sunscreen...

      I decided to try to find the famous area near the border which housed a lot of Russian style hotels and traditional buildings. 
Signposts with 4 languages. 
I guess quite a few people here could read all the languages.

Really fancy toilets

Symbolic religious pictures on the front.

Like  a Russian fairground

This is one of the most unique hotels I have ever seen.

It looks huge from any angle.


 It is nice to see a different style of building in this part of the country.


            While I was walking arounnd the place, I kept seeing something on the ground. It looked like there were tiny insects jumping all over the pavement. I scooched down to look a bit close and saw that they were some kind of small frog / newt! 
They were jumping all the way to the border.
Maybe the taste of food for frogs is tastier across the border?


Old school transport


The shop sold the traditional trinkets.

                    I thought about staying a bit longer here but word was filtering through that I needed to get back to Zhejiang before there was a full on lockdown up here. If that happened, I would have to have a 14 day quarantine up here before going back to Yiwu and possibly doing the same thing back there.
                    I got a bus back to the station. As I got off the bus, a woman shouted at me and asked if I wanted to stay at her hostel. It seemed fine to me as I just needed a place to rest for a while so I paid her the money and showed her the usual stuff.
                     Around 5 P.M (about 2 hours after deciding to stay there), I asked the woman if I could hang up my laundry out the front of the building. She told me that she would do it for me. I thought this was a bit odd but OK.  Then, another 10 minutes passed and she told me that I needed to go as I was not allowed to stay at her place.  AAArrrrgggggghhhhhhhhhh! So, she put my wet clothes in a bag and told me to walk out the back of the building as if I walked out the front, she might get a huge fine for letting foreigners in her place (as apparently she did the previous year.) I was starting to feel like I was on the run but I was still not sure what I was on the run from! 
              So, I decided to head back to Hailar , then have a quick train journey to Dayan (大雁)  to see what the biggest Ewenke town looked like before heading back to Hailar and getting a plane back to Beijing and then another plane back to Hangzhou.
              I had hoped that there might not be many troubles doing this.