Fellow Virtual Travelers,
Fall is in the air and we're reminded of our previous trips to China during the fall season. The Fairy Mountains of Wudang explode with its vibrant hues of yellow, orange and red! With the anticipation of fall and the return to school, our thoughts wander to the daily grind, or more diplomatically stated, daily life. Life in a different culture and environment may look different to what has become typical in America.
Eating
We talked before about packing snacks for the numerous hours we find ourselves on the trail and away from civilization. Nuts, granola, dried fruit, snack bars and M&M's make up a large portion of those snacks. And for those times when we're not up to boiled cabbage for breakfast, bring packets of oatmeal to cook up in the hotel room!
When dining out, expect to order one dish each and share on the center lazy susan on the table. Rice is readily available, but not always served unless asked for (it is considered a poor man's food, so the fear is that American guests would be offended with being served rice). You'll partake in delicious dishes containing ingredients that you don't recognize. We even came across some vegetables for which there is no English word!
The area in Hubei Province where Wudang is located, has a plethora of cuisines to choose from. Everything from the spicy foods common in Szechuan Province, to bland foods only boiled in water with nothing added for taste.
Water
Boiled or bottled. That's all you can trust. When out hiking, there may be no vendors along the way to buy bottled water from, so always bring enough water to get you back to civilization! However, don't ever use tap water! Buy water where you can and beyond that, here is the daily drinking water drill. There are hot water teapots in every room (sometimes their cords are too short to reach the plug, so you have to improvise!). Boil a pot of water at night. In the morning, pour cooled off boiled water into your water bottles. Set more water to boil before you leave the room for the day. The alternative is to bring water purifiers and spend time with either filtering water into your bottles, or using ultraviolet light to 'zap' your water pure (SteriPEN)!
Sleeping
Hotel rooms are typically smaller than those found in the U.S. Beds are smaller and not plush (at least not the hotels we stay in). The floor of our hotel on Wudang was tile and an air conditioner/heater was mounted on the wall beside the front window. The unit was run by a remote control and due to expense, we were encouraged to NOT use it!
Bathroom facilities
Most public restrooms have running water with sinks and more often than not the pit-style toilet. Most hotels we've stayed in on our journeys had western style toilets in the room's bathroom. This trip was different. The hotel we stayed in on the mountain, had a total of three rooms (one on top of the other). Only the top room had a western style toilet. That was left open for our use, when it wasn't being used by someone else. Now imagine hiking all day, coming back with sore knees, hip and leg muscles. Then squat to use the toilet facilities! Oh and the sewage systems can't handle toilet paper, so you throw away used paper in the waste baskets (and empty your trash daily)!
So, our quaint rooms had private bathrooms (one step up from the room) with a small free standing sink, a hot water heater hanging on the wall and a pit-style toilet. Of interest, the hand-held shower spray nozzle hung right next to the electrical power plug in for the hot water heater, so you had to be very careful about where you pointed the shower spray! And because the bathroom was small, you had to straddle the toilet pit, when taking a shower!
Laundry
In the remote regions of Wudang mountain, there are no washing machines or dryers. So hand wash what you can in your small bathroom sink, then hang parachute cord across the bedroom, tying one end to the wardrobe and the other end to the window curtain. Use safety pins or office paper clamps to hang up the clothes on the line (clothes pins are too bulky to pack).
Many hotels will provide basic laundry service. In our case Mrs. Yang (restaurant owner and hotel co-owner) charged us 5 yuan (about one US dollar) per shirt or pants. The laundry was hand washed in a big red bowl in front of the hotel on the sidewalk. Needless to say, we washed and dried all of our underwear in our hotel room!
During our three week stay, we only asked for our bed sheets to be changed once. And out came the big red bowl on the sidewalk!
Shopping
Our hotel on the mountain was along the shopping area of the Wuyaling Parking Lot. End of the road on that area of the mountain! Each shop sold pretty much the same tourist items: playing cards; fans; fake jade buddhas; coins; dragon and tiger statues; and scarves. And our favorite - a solar powered prayer wheel! All of this is contained in a room that is no larger than 10' by 10'! At night, the metal garage door is pulled down to close the shop and owners either walk up the stairway to their living quarters, or they retire to the room behind the shop.
No chance to use a credit card. Hope you brought Chinese currency! Dickering is very common and in the end, the American price is sometimes 10 times more than the price a local would get. One of the beautiful things about living among the people and staying for a period of time is that you get to know the shop owners. They wave and yell 'Hello' in Chinese, every time you walk by! We've even been humbled by receiving 'gifts' from the owners, knowing that they have so little and yet have big hearts for their foreign visitors, who are willing to live among them for so long!
Shopping in the city at the base of the mountain was similar to shopping on the mountain. We found a 'hardware store' which became a favorite for supplies! Because the air is humid, Anita splurged on a Chinese hair dryer (easier to just plug in, than to connect up the adapters each morning)!
Blessings,
Dennis&Anita