Don't worry or go to the bathhouse! China-2017. Part 17. Until new brooms.
Dazzhai Longsheng Hot Springs2017-06-09 Day 12 strong>
In Dazhai, the houses are made of cardboardplywood. Therefore, the audibility in hotels is excellent. If someone sneezes in the next room, you can calmly say “be healthy”, the neighbor will certainly hear you.
Elephants were our neighbors.
It's hard to tell where they settled - above us or through the wall, but they caused a small earthquake just by moving around their room.
And they also had children. Two boys of early puberty. I like children very much. But in places like this, it's hard to remember that. Children in a Dajai hotel cause a real Armageddon. How the hotel didn't fall apart I have no idea.
But this morning I didn’t wake up from the neighbors, the neighbors were just fast asleep, I woke up from the sound of rain.
It was the most magnificent rain!
Of course, I love rains very much and they all seem magnificent to me, but this rain was all rains. It went like a solid wall, flooding lacy slopes with tropical tenacity and filling the world with the crazy smells of wet China.
Ah, how it smells!
All these terraces, this greenery, these wooden houses, mossy in places, and in others shining with newness, smelled in a completely special way in the rain. The hot earth sighed with steam. Wisps of fog clung to the steps of the terraces, swaying and multiplying. The rain tied together the whole bouquet, caressed all the senses, rocked and stirred at the same time.
It was impossible to break away from this rain.
I sat in front of the open window and dreamed that this rain would never end.
I'm a water maniac.
But you need to go. Through the looking-glass, lower us, today we cannot! Today is bath day! A day of relaxation in the hot baths. You can't miss this! Especially since the hotel was booked for a thousand yuan.
I run down the rattling stairs for boiling water, it's time to have breakfast and pack my suitcase. We make a terrible noise with the rain, the tree gives off the moon, sorry, neighbors!
The entire first floor is a common area, I would say a salon. There is a reception desk, washbasins, a shared toilet, a cafe, a tea ceremony area. .
There is also a hairdryer, kettle and water cooler. And a whole company of thermoses.
Not the reception is empty, 6 am, the owners are still sleeping. A boiling water is very necessary. I'm trying to shove a thermos under the cooler's faucet. Does not fit. Well, at least put it in your mouth. Or run back for a mug.
Imagine sleeping guests to the sound of my flying gait, looking around in search of a solution to the problem, I find a display case with dishes.
I take out a small bowl from there and try to get boiling water into it, but the water comes out only cold, apparently, the cooler should be turned on. I don’t know how the cooler turns on, but there is a kettle! ) I collect water with a bowl, I wait until the kettle boils.
Now you are already tired reading this, but imagine Nadia, who sent me to bring some water. She thinks that I went to the village or went to the springs without her at all.
Finally, the quest is completed, I solemnly deliver the kettle to the room, pour a thermos and jump down so that our neighbors can also get the kettle. On the way, I wonder if they take ear plugs with them when they travel.
You, if you go to Dazhai, take it! Here all the hotels are equally thundering.
Yesterday we asked the hostess if she could find us a car to get to the springs, she called somewhere and gave us a completely insane price - 450 yuan, and not from the hotel, but from the bus station. No one will drive up to the hotel, she said. Our arguments that we came here by car were simply brushed aside. You dreamed it. This is not possible.
According to the Mepsmi map, it is 68 km from Dazhai to Longshen hot springs through the city of Longshen. We don't even want half the price, so it's pointless to haggle. Booked porters for the morning. The price is 50 yuan per suitcase, although the day before we were offered for 40 and it's up!
Apparently, at the bus station, competition forces prices to be lowered, and in hotels the tourist has little choice - either agree for 50 or carry it yourself. We would not have suffered for any money, this is understandable.
In the morning, a hotel worker wrapped our suitcases in raincoats, tied them to a bamboo stick and took them to the bus station. We ran after him. 8:20, the bus is over an hour away, but we'd better wait there.
The rain had almost stopped, the air was filled with ozone, it was breathable. Walking is easy, although, as I said, a huge number of steps in the village is tiring even when descending.
Having caught up with our porter at the bus station and barely having time to tell him to sit, he ran back so quickly, we uncovered our thermos and sat down on a familiar bench to drink our coffee. We were recognized by the locals, they smiled, waved their hands, invited us to buy all sorts of useful and useless things from them.
To taste, it vaguely resembles a strawberry, in appearance - a huge round raspberry, and the stone inside is like a plum. The berry is quite dense, maybe it’s not a berry, but a fruit, since there is a large bone inside, Wikipedia is silent about this, but I saw it for the first time.
I really wanted these Yanmei.
- Duoshaochien?
"How much or how little is this thing worth? »- verbatim)
- Sysy kwai.
Kwai is "money", in this case yuan. But Sysy - in the local dialect can mean both forty and fourteen. The locals hear by tone, but I don’t have such an ear for music, so I ask again many times, pressing on the hissing ones.
- Shysym? (fourteen) Syshyma? (forty) Miefeidema? (for free).
Now I will teach you, and you will also be able to count in Chinese.
Whom such digressions tire - scroll on. But, if you are in China - write it down for yourself, suddenly it will come in handy)
Ma is just a question, it's not a number.
Numbers: 0-lin, 1-i, 2-ar, 3-san, 4-si, 5-wu, 6-liu, 7-qi, 8-ba, 9-ciou, 10-shy.
That's all you need to know about numbers) You can also learn 100-buy, 1000-chen, 10.000-van.
And then everything is easy and simple. The Chinese say ten-four is fourteen. And four-ten is forty. That is four tens. What could be easier? )
35, for example, will be three-tens-five (san-shy-wu), 918 - nine-hundred-tens-eight (ts'ou-bai-shy-ba), 5267 - five-thousand-two-hundred-six-tens -seven (wu-chen-ar-bai-liu-shy-qi). 11111 sounds very nice - one-ten-thousandth-one-thousand-one-hundred-tens-one (i-wang-i-chen-i-bai-shy-i). Like a song! )
They pronounce the year or number of something (apartment, car, ticket) as single digits, without thousands, hundreds, tens. 2017 - two-zero-one-seven (ar-ling-i-qi). So faster)
Another very important knowledge about numbers, I almost forgot - if we are talking about two pieces of something (or someone), then the ar turns into a vine. Lian gee phyao - two (pieces) tickets. It's as if we were saying "two". This does not apply to other numbers.
I bargained with a girl, she batted her eyes, blushed and sweated, the uncle laughed merrily and for twenty we bought half a kilogram of this exotic. Probably originally it cost fourteen)
I have already said - in China, the unit of weight is half a kilogram, called qin. Half a kilo - i-qin (one qin), a kilogram - lian-qin (two qin).
Then I asked my uncle where to wash the fruit.
- Yes, eat like that, they are clean!
- I won't.
- Well, let's go
And he led me to the back of the bus station, where a not very clean stream ran. I was even afraid that it was proposed to wash in this stream. But there was a faucet and my uncle helped me hold the bag while I washed the exotic. Golden man.
By the way, in Chinese, the water tap will be the head of a water dragon. Stop me.
The bus was already standing, our suitcases were loaded into the luggage while I was doing Chinese arithmetic with you, but the departure was scheduled in another ten minutes, at 9:30, and I moved away from people to smoke. In China, they smoke everywhere, not paying attention to whether there is someone nearby, but I feel more comfortable when I don’t smoke at people, so I always hide in some kind of trenches. And I see from the trench, our golden uncle is running towards me with a pack of cigarettes.
- Come on - he says - change cigarettes. Peace, friendship, chewing gum!
And holds out one cigarette.
It was sad for me to look at him when he puffed on my thin R1 with holes in the filter) He looked so perplexedly at the cigarette, then at me why even take such a miracle in your mouth. And I still keep his cigarette, I'm afraid that if I smoke it, I'll see the head of a water dragon.
When the bus finally left, there were no empty seats left. And along the way, people sat down and sat down.
Long before Longsheng, I begin to pester the mother sitting next to me with a wonderful baby, with questions about how to get to the sources. She explains first in words, and then through a translator on her phone, that the conductor will help me at the bus station, transfer me to another bus. I look at the conductor, she nods:
- Don't worry, I'll give you to my colleagues right in the hands!
But we did not get to the bus station that day.
At 11 am. The bus stopped where we got on. The bridge is closed. Today is a holiday in Longsheng. Colorful columns of people dressed in national costumes of different nationalities walked in an endless stream across the bridge.
We sat on the bus for a while in the hope that the columns would end, but there was no end to them.
Therefore, having unloaded in the middle of the street, we scratch across the bridge with suitcases, overtaking the demonstration.
The sight is very beautiful. We stop for photos. It's a pity, not a single normal one turned out.
They go and go, the end of this human river is not visible. And we have to go. Our springs are boiling. We are literally a stone's throw from the bus station. Suddenly Nadia waves to me: "Follow me! " and crosses the road in front of a column that is a little behind the others. I run after her, I am laughing, now we need to get back, because the columns turn right along the road, cutting us off from the bus station.
- Nadya, have you seen what television is filming? We have appeared on Chinese TV screens as laowai and disturbing the peace! )
But we'll be here until the evening!
- Now let's go, yeah.
But Nadia would not be Nadia if she had not found a decisive way out. Waving to me: "Follow me! " and we run across to the other side in another break of the columns. But even after that we did not get to the bus station! )
Not fate, in general.
Approaching the very steps of the bus station, practically being at the entrance, we look at the building and stumble upon a policeman.
- Tell me, please, how can we get to this place? - I show my printout from the booking.
The policeman thinks for a long time, then turns to the guy standing next to him with a question, he explains something to him, showing himself behind his back.
- Go to the bus station, there is a bus.
- And how to get to the bus station?
The policeman points to the left. I look doubtfully at first where he pointed, then at him.
He points to the right.
I ask again.
- And so I will come, and so too?
The policeman has run out of arguments.
The guy watching all of this can't stand the sadness on my face and says?
- I'm going there, I can give you a lift. One hundred yuan.
No auction happened, as soon as I heard a hundred, I immediately nodded. An obsession, honestly, here is a bus around the corner, only 30 kilometers to go and tickets for 9 yuan. But as it turned out, it was a great choice. This guy helped us a lot.
He explains something else, I still don’t understand, I nod, agreeing to everything, only specifying that for a hundred yuan he will take us right to the door of the hotel and that this is the cost of the trip for both of us and all our things)
After circling Longsheng, we stop to pick up more passengers. This is our driver's family. A wife with a baby, a teenager, perhaps a brother or nephew and a silent grandmother. The wife speaks some English and smiles all the time. At about 11:45 we leave the city.
We are driving along a beautiful road, sorry I was embarrassed to ask to stop to take pictures.
The river that runs next to the road overflows from time to time, surrounding steep, high, forested mountains. It looks like fjords. But the main decoration of the landscape is small pavilions nestled on the slopes, arising unexpectedly, sometimes wrapped in a cloud.
And bridges! A lot of completely different bridges spanned this river.
I know that there is a beautiful waterfall in the area, but I cannot ask to go there. It was necessary to immediately stipulate such a moment, and now we have a full car of people.
And you, if you are in those parts and will go by taxi, you can call. This waterfall is marked on the mepsmi map.
The road flew by quickly, it was even a little sorry. We landed at the parking lot at 12:20, asking the driver where to go. He reads our printout again, then calls on the phone, then runs to the guards' booth. We are patiently waiting.
Finally, we load back into the car and drive straight to the porch. The driver leaves the suitcases in the trunk, goes to check out with us.
Longsheng Spa Hotel, five stars. Huge hall, large reception, a lot of staff. Our printout is viewed from all sides, passing from hand to hand. They ask what the hell. Booking reservation is not seen at home.
We don't have your armor. - give me a printout.
- But this is your hotel? I poke my finger at her.
- Yes, this is our hotel, but booking did not send us this reservation.
- Do you have available rooms?
Yes, there are numbers.
- Then we need a number.
- Do you need a SPA?
- Yes, we need free access to the springs.
- Then you're not here. The hotel is only called SPA, but there is no SPA here. (iron logic)
- Where are the hot springs?
- Here.
- Then us to you.
- We can't give you a number.
- Are all the numbers busy?
- No, there are free rooms.
- So why?
- We don't see your booking and we don't have a spa.
- But this is your hotel? - I poke at the name again.
- Yes.
I am telling you this in such a fluent way, as if the conversation is in the same language, but in fact we do not understand each other at all. An electronic translator and our knowledge of foreign languages is clearly not enough to solve the problem. The conversation goes into the second round, I'm angry in earnest. I called Booking, they don't pick up the phone. I am writing to my husband: "Call me urgently, you need to contact booking. " It's good that he was still sleeping at that time and did not get involved in the showdown. I'm already starting to panic.
Our guy was sweating all over, proving to them that these tinbudons need to be attached here, otherwise where would he put them? His family bathes in the sun, but wants to bathe in hot springs!
We persuade him to leave us here and leave quietly, but he stands his ground:
- Give them the number, what do you care about that booking?
But they have to pay money!
And then it dawns on us that they think that the reservation has already been paid. Let's start the conversation from the beginning:
- Give us the number, we'll pay in cash. We will deal with booking ourselves. We want to go to hot springs! It's already half a day, and we're nowhere in sight! We want to rest! Here is our money, please take it!
I remind you that all this happens in a hotel for 1000 yuan per day, and also 60 yuan of some kind of tax.
We are asked if we want to check into this hotel, right here, but there is no SPA, but the check-in will cost less, or we want for 1060 yuan, but there will be a SPA and the waterfall is visible from the window...
AAAAAA!
- Give us a number, just like on the reservation, for 1060 yuan! !
And then Nadia broke down:
- Tanya, do not give them this piece of paper, otherwise everything will start all over again! And we'll be here until the new brooms soar!
But suddenly everything was decided miraculously, they took 1060 yuan from us and led us through the turnstile, along a beautiful alley to another building.
As I understood, then reflecting on the situation, there are two parts of one hotel - Longsheng Hot Spring Resort, 4 stars, without SPA services included and Longsheng Spa Hotel, 5 stars, with SPA services included. The second stands directly on the sources, but they have a common reception.
We warmly said goodbye to the guy, bringing him our apologies for the delay. On the clock 13:10. We sat at the reception, solving the universal problem, no more than half an hour, but it seemed to me that half a day had passed.
There was no further passage and we again dragged our suitcases ourselves.
We got to the room so tired that even now, telling you all this, I feel this tiredness.
I'll talk about the sources themselves next time!
