tianchi, wucaiwan

jeep for 800+450 (gas).
scamville or tianchi
tianchi scam – ticket required for driver, and vehicles not allowed in unless arrangements are made to eat at a restaurant in the tianchi lake area. zuo shifu was sussing the guy out: just lunch? no other charges? ‘no, no, just lunch.’ in retrospect, maybe the fact that we were in a jeep broadcasted ‘fleece me! fleece me!’ the guy and his body odour hopped on and got us past the first parking lot. stopped at 2nd parking lot (where cable car stops, and you have to take the trolley to venture further up.) all the bloody ‘guards’ are in on this, communicating license plate numbers on their walkie-talkies. guessing level 2 guard not happy with his cut. this required someone higher up the hierarchy to make a personal appearance: a petite lady in white oversized sunglasses. having finally made it through, decided to have lunch first and finish with our obligation. ‘come this way, dining room, yurt, it’s all the same, yurt’s cooler,’ said the spider to the fly. severely inflated prices, with many dishes clearing 100. ordered手抓肉 (80), 2手抓饭 (30), vegetables (35). bill came to 455. charged 30 for chai, 80 for the snacks on the table (‘how much are the snacks? ‘dunno.’) and a whopping 200 for the yurt. we refused to pay for the last 2 items, counted out 175, and told the woman who took our order to take it or leave it. we left the money on the table and went out. protracted session in the lot between slimy sleazeball and our driver, who was not happy with the hidden charges either. A finally gave the guy another 50 and then we left.
soured by the bad experience, the sight of hordes of tourists around tianchi did nothing to improve our mood.
after half an hour of half-hearted photo-taking, sleazeball popped up again. now claiming that there was no money in the yurt and threatened to call the police. so we told him to go ahead, he subsequently turned up with a bunch of公安 (security guards), who were in on the scam in the first place! luckily for us, someone in charge from the tianchi management turned up to arbitrate. (hard to tell at first since he was in plain clothes.) we didn’t want to return to the scene of the scam but he promised us the matter would be settled in 10 minutes. once there, there was a parade of the 2 servers who claimed to have seen no money. upshot was guy-in-charge said ok, we’ll halve the amount and then consider the matter settled. we forked out 90 and finally left the place at about 3 pm.
the plan had been to meet up with another jeep carrying a couple to五彩湾as well. bought a家食瓜 (10) and ate half the melon while waiting for the other jeep. a miscommunication over the rendezvous point meant another half an hour was wasted. eventually met up at dahuangshan, and thus began the long and bumpy journey to reach五彩湾before sunset. the road leading there was currently under construction so much of the journey was off-road, on dirt/gravel tracks, with bouts of dust-eating. after a while, our vehicle started throwing tantrums and the engine kept dying on us. good thing there was the other jeep so we squeezed in with the couple. for the second time in 2 days, A was reckoned to be mom to L and me. 同母异父we joked!
tian shifu was a more experienced driver and he would be the couple’s driver for the next 10 days. the couple was from shanghai; she a secondary school astronomy teacher and he a serious photography buff. they’d been planning this for a while and were doing both the northern (北疆) and southern (南疆) routes in 20 days. most amazingly, she was doing it even though she gets carsick!?
made it in time for sunset, only to find two mini-buses of tourists from hong kong. they endured the journey in those?? also surprised to find 2 chaps staying out here just to collect the 20 rmb entry per person (16 if no receipt needed).
in the event, we were the only ones camping there, though from the amount of broken beer bottle glass around, many have certainly done so.
wucaiwan was a gorgeous geological site with stripes of various hues running across the hills. and the best part given that it was a tourist attraction in china? the absolute silence whenever the wind dropped.
it was hotter than expected, even at night. it was unbearably stifling in the tent and i decided to sleep with my head sticking out. until i saw a raccoon-sized animal streak across the groundsheet. back into the stifling tent it was. didn’t get much sleep that night.