des hommes et des bambous, part 2

06.11.2006

Part 2

Well, after a long night of deserved sleep, we were really happy and relaxed!

The only thing I forget to tell you is that, when you came back last night from our “bamboo forest project”... Celine and I found in our room a very big spider! Yes almost the size of my fist (no I’m not exaggerating...!!)! It was disgusting...but we had to do something! So I took one of Celine's sneakers and give a sharp stroke on the "beast", killed it instantly! Wahoo! I feel released, just that now i got to clean it...urggggg....gosh it's not pretty to see!!! Finally I throw it on the toilets....

I sat on my bed to rest a bit, when suddenly something black and viscous went out from the wall near the bathroom door! Again? Not a spider again!?

Nop, we were lucky, it’s just a cockroach…Ho My God!! And not those small ones you can see in Paris, but a HUGE one! Big Black flying cockroach running everywhere in the room!

I GOT TO KILL HIM!! “Sur le Champ!”. Couldn’t Stand it one more second…So I took Celine’s sneaker again and pursuit this devil in every corner of the room. Actually this small shit was quite smart?! Couldn’t believe it! Couldn’t get him! So, I waited and waited until he appeared from under the bed, and then…BAMM! Straight dead! My first feeling was disgust…coz saw this big amount of smelly viscus was really, REALLY horrible! And the worth is that I got to clean it and through it on the toilet again…Well, I am a courage girl, so I did it, then I felt very release!

Awesome! No more strange things in our room!

I haven’t tell you that Celine was really scare and was hiding being her pillow…she just show me her sneakers! She wanted me to kill them coz it was beyond her force.

Well, after all this emotions, it’s was easy to sleep!

So, it was Sunday, and we packed our bags to leave the hotel. We’ve decided to go the “big lake”. In fact when we were in the car yesterday to go to Mogashan, we saw a quiet big lake down the hills, beautiful, surrounded by Bamboo Mountains; in reality it’s a big natural water reservoir.

But first we ask for our breakfast, coz the woman of the hotel told us we had a free breakfast included in the price.

We then sat at the same table in the yard, and waited for the food. She started to bring a big pot of rice congee (boiled rice soup), then some bread, some eggs and pickles. Very Chinese breakfast!! I don’t mind, I’m not too difficult and anyway, I was really starving…no diner last night. So I ate a lot.

But the 3 others weren’t so into this "fabulous" meal!

Laurent was already negotiating to take a car to go to the big lake. I said no, I wanted to walk a bit and so was Celine and Dave.
We asked the woman if we can rent bikes, but she said no...only one was available, but we were 4...
So we asked her how far is the lake and she said about 10km, so about one hour and a half of walk. We all decided to walk to the lake, after all 10km is not so far! Except Laurent who was a bit unhappy, we were all in a good mood. The day was fantastic, lot of sun, not win, no clouds, not too hot, not too cold, just perfect!

After one hour and a half of walk, we still didn’t see the lake called DuiHeKou. We asked some people, and some others, and always the same answer “continue straight, go down the hill, you are not so far”. But now we were walking for two and half hour…and still nothing, just a small stream…

At noon, Laurent was almost crying, he didn’t want to move any more, so we had a rest. The sun was high and it’s was really hot now, plus we had our bags with us…

Then a bus passed by, and we took it. After 3 minutes, we saw the lake!! It was there in front of our eyes! We were almost there! Gosh…

We learned it later but in fact, DuiHeKou reservoir was 20km from our hotel...and when you are walking in mountains roads it takes much more time!!

Then 5 minutes later we arrived at the village of Duihekou. We were starving! So we went to a small restaurant and ordered lot of food, yellow fish, fried bamboo shoots, green bean, roasted duck, etc…6 dishes in total, and like pork we ate every single thing.

It was really good!

We met a guy that the waitress called “the boss”, coz he is very riche she said. He had a quick lunch, and asked us if we needed a ride to go to the reservoir, he got a car, and he’s going there to fish.

In the car he told us he is from Hangzhou, and often comes the weekend to fish there, the water is really clean and it’s calm as well.

Then he left us at the beginning of the reservoir. We had a small walk, the view was magnificent, and the water as clear as the blue sky!

There were some huge houses built around the lake, quite nice actually.

We went there to see one of them. In the house is empty, it’s just used as a port for boats. There was a boat towing inside, and a big ramp going from the house to the water. Strange!

Near the house there’s a small pathway leading to the water.

The pathway was terminated by stairs going under the water.

We sat there, the water was so clear, the sky so blue, the mountains so green…it was like a dream or like a drawing…so beautiful, so unreal…

I was amazed, and so were Celine, Laurent and Dave!

Then we took of some of our clothes, to get tanned and also to taste this wonderful water.

We stayed there enjoying the water and the sun…so good! So far from Shanghai and the pollution! It’s such a good place!

It’s already 4pm and we decided to have a walk around the lake before going back Hangzhou to catch the train…

There’s lot of tea plantation in this area, and it’s quite nice, but 2 bad things also…

First one is this spot is kind of lost coz you can’t find tourist or they are all in Mogashan…BUT, you still find people taking photos while wearing wedding dress!! Lot of couples came here to make their wedding photos…well, it’s their right to do this, but for my part I think it’s a bit ridiculous to pose like that, it’s too fake!

Second, even there you can see wasted paper and plastic bags everywhere…used can and so on…it’s a real shame! We though we can escape the pollution for once, it’s just an illusion…coz in pollution follows you everywhere!!

Such a nice place devastated by plastic bags and old food packs…feels bad suddenly…

Now, it’s time to leave…we called the driver and the came to DuiheKou village to drive us to Hangzhou.

Bad news, no more train, except slow train…3hours and half to go Shanghai…NO WAY.

We took the Bus.

After 2hours and half we finally reached Shanghai and the lights of the night!

Shanghai here we were again! Thanks for your pollution and traffic jam!