It's the Place to Be!

Kangding. What a place. This was our Tibetan City.

We took an eight hour bus ride that lead into the night. About 45 minutes before we arrived, they put in an American movie. I believe it was rated R. They had it Chinese dubbed, except for...when they would say bad things, it would change to English. That was awesome. Imagine 6 LDS girls in a full bus (nice seats, video at the front, speakers all the way back). Suddenly we could understand a sentence. What was this phenomenon? Oh, it was there censorship. How wonderful for the six of us to hear. A few F words and a few of that and those. I realized that quickly and each time it went into English, I would plug my ears and sing to myself. = ) It was funny. That I cannot deny. What a horrible way to censor a movie! Who knows how many of those people know English or not?

That bus drove on some of the most windy and curvy roads I had ever been on. It also drove on dirt roads. That is right. For about 20 minutes or more, we drove on dirt roads with huge bumps and crazy construction. At night, it was not so bad. It was rather mystifying. You could see huge vehicles for construction and their lights would hit the mountains and you would realize how massive the valleys and river running near, under, and around you was. Yet, it was only a glimpse in the dark.

When we got to the little bus station, there were at least 10 people surrounding us. They were asking questions and trying to find out where we were headed. There were two women that were offering us rooms to stay in. At least, that is what we got out of their hand motions for sleeping and pointing across the street where they would come back and forth from. Then others were offering their driving services. We pulled out a couple of Chinese phrase books and tried our hardest to communicate. One guy had someone who spoke English on his cellphone. It was quite a mess but eventually, we had two men escort us by walking, to our hostel. Did I mention it was freezing? There was snow and ice on the ground. It was a good thing I wore my rain boots right? What a treat this would be.

When we found someone who actually worked at the hostel, she guided us down and behind another building. There was no way we would have found it on our own. It did not have a sign or hint of being a hostel. Apparently everything was quite new. Construction was going on almost 24/7 on the building. We had 4 rooms for us. We also had 3 different levels on which those rooms were located. To get to the 2nd and 3rd floor, we climbed these bare wood stairs and it just kept going. The nice thing about all the new wood and construction was that it did not smell like China. It had a delicious wooden smell.
But oh how the bitter cold winded us. Each bed had an electric 'blanket' or pad in the middle, under our sheets. It helped but it also helped us want to stay in bed when we needed to be out and about early the next morning.

We woke up early, and no one showered. Why, you might ask. Well, first of all, it was freezing so taking layers of clothes off seemed to be a terrible idea. Also, some of the girls did not bring towels because they hoped the hostels would provide them. Which some did and some did not. This one did not. Oh, and one last thing,  there was not a door on the shower. That is right. No door. This place really must have been brand new.

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The craziest thing happened early in the morning. I heard crashing above me. I thought, well if something happens, it was meant to be, and promptly fell back asleep. Well, have I mentioned that the hostel was partially IN the mountain? By the shower, the mountain actually peaked in and the wall was built around the boulder jutting from the mountain. Awesome. When Bryndi and I talked to our head teacher, Kim, she had a much harder time 'going back to bed'. Apparently rocks had fallen INTO her window seal. She could have died!! Good thing there were bars on the window (now partially bent). The window seal did break though and it was coming into her room. The next night, she was rooming with Ashley. = )





So out the door at 6:45am. We followed the large raging river upstream for a while. Then headed down a small road. We found interesting shops and spotted places we may want to come back and eat at. We tried to find a trail up a mountain but instead we just found a very neat temple and some beautiful mountain views.

We walked around in this city all day. We found some nice shopping experiences. My favorite was near the end. A SCARF shop. There were scarves galore! It was also the cheapest price I had heard all day and then I regretted not finding this place first. It was funny though, I only got a couple of scarves here and the best thing of all was my HAND WARMERS! I plan on gifting some but they are adorable. For only 10 yuan each, I was thrilled!

For Lunch, we stopped at a little Tibetan restaurant. There was yak meat dumplings that each girl seemed to love, yak milk butter tea that tasted just like when you put everything except the cheese in your mac and cheese, yak meat with noodles, and yak meat in fried rice. I had some noodles and fried rice but I prefer to stay away from meat. = ) 

We found our way back to the hostel and Bryndi and I shared a room. I had bought some corn in a can to eat (easy to open lid, no can opener) because it was the best looking food around. I warmed it up in our little pot for hot water. Worked like a charm. Then I realized I had no fork but oh ho ho, I'm in China. I had meticulously placed chopsticks in my bag before I left. I pulled those out and ate my delicious corn right out of the pot!

It was colder inside the hostel than outside! It was a surprise for sure. We jumped in bed and did not want to get out! We sat and talked and read our books. The other girls dropped by to say they were going to the bakery for dinner and we could come. We decided against it. Afterward, I realized it would have been warmer to go and we missed out on seeing dancing in the square! Oh what a pity. The next day, we had to catch a bus early and head back to Chengdu. This time, I could see the whole canyon/valley. I got very carsick in the front seat, squished in with my backpack, and on those awful roads. Good thing I had motion sickness pills!! I slept a long time that day.