Qin Ling Mountain Resort

We were treated to an overnight luxury retreat in the Qin Ling Mountains just South of Xi'an.  This is the area where the wealthy city folk go to beat the summer city heat.  Once again, have I said that before, getting there was part of the experience.  We piled onto a minivan and headed out.  I ended up with a front seat and was prime witness to the action.

Briefly.  It was raining.  The windshield wipers worked well enough to provide kaleidoscopic blur of colors.  The driver kept the widows down the whole time which helped vent the exhaust which seemed to me pouring in.  He drove the mountain  roads like a maniac taking the inside line on every corner blaring his horn all the while.  The next day when we came down with the mountain on our right and he stayed in the left lane almost the entire time.  That turned out to be the wisest move as miles of the right lane were full of rocks that rolled down from the hillside ranging in size from golfball to oversized basketball.

After Mr. Toads wild ride we ended up at the resort.  The resort was really a farmhouse and luxury is in the eye of the beholder.  We dropped our bags in the room and did the requisite bedbug check.  Re: bedbugs - I am not sure how we could not get them on this trip but so far so good.  These beds turned out to be safe as they were mostly old cardboard and foam wrapped in and old blanket, nothing a civilized bed bug would care for.

For both our meals we were treated to more vegetables then we have had since we started.  All the beans, bean sprouts, cucumber, unions and various other greens were grown right there.  A bowl of meat was set in front of us at each meal.  Riley was sad to learn the first bowl contain rabbit but she was ok with the chicken.  What she was not ok with was how the animals were prepared.  Each one was chopped whole.  Not filleted by any stretch of the imagination, it was all in there, bones and who knows what else.  Someone was unknowingly chewing on part of the rabbits jawbone when they pulled it out and found a few teeth still attached.  No one took the challenge and stomached the chicken feet.

We did a steep, slippery hike up a mulit-tiered waterfall which was very nice.  It was too bad that there was trash all up and down this little site.  Western culture definitely has differing sensibilities when it comes to trash.  That could simply be a function of our abilities and efforts to manage it.  China is emerging and I expect this is something they will leave in their past at some point.  It reminded me that when Patti and I saw the Giza Pyramids in Cairo the trash there was surprising, and that was a national treasure.

The girls practiced their calligraphy skills with Chinese characters.  Tara and Dad learned to write their Chinese names.

It was a chilly evening as the girls warmed themselves around a firepot while the gang played some cards.  Later that night we settled down in our unheated farmhouse with all of our clothes on for some sleep on our cardboard beds.  The kicker was the nicely embroidered pillow case that contained not a fluffy down pillow but a bag of rice.  Believe it or not, a bag of rice makes a better pillow then you might think and you can eat it during those long winters.

No day would be complete without the toilet report.  These outhouses in the cool mountain air smelled better then almost all of the inhouses we have experienced thus far.  This little dandy was steps away from our door, I bet the summer heat is unkind to the mountain scents.

We bid adieu to Monica, a grad student from the Czeck Republic, our guide for this segment.

Images in 2013 Qin Ling