Sunday Datong and Drive Home

Up at 5:40 because Todd was awake which meant everyone needed to be awake. Cameron immediately rolled over and said "Happy Mothers Day Mom". What a sweet boy.

So, how did the sleeping go? Terrible. It was hot, I couldn't get comfortable, and at least 5 times Cameron whacked me in the face with his hand and elbow. But hey, it was great family bonding time.

Happy Mother's Day to me.

The BEST present I could have ever asked for.

Our drivers were suppose to be at our hotel at 7:30 but we got a message that said they would be there at 8. Bummer because Mr. Xue was bringing us McDonald's for breakfast. Not a big deal. We were headed down to go for a walk when we met the Carrasco kids in the hallway.  They were on their way to our room.  They had a big chocolate chip cookie for me with the letters H, M, D, (Happy Mother's Day).  That was such a surprise and so sweet.  We busted some off right then to try it.  Yum!

Marcela presented me with the cookie.

Love all these kids.

Cameron and I still went for a walk around the town while Todd stayed with the bags. Not much to see but we were the locals entertainment. Everyone stopped to look at us, a police car with 4 people in it slowed down so they all could stare at us, and a group of men yelled at us and waved to us. We waved back. They all laughed. Good morning for a bunch of Datong people.

This building was in the middle of the road.  Birds
were swarming all around it which is unusual
in China.

This was an interesting looking building.

Our hotel.

Back to the hotel. Carrasco's were done eating. With their booking they got two breakfasts. We sat outside for a few minutes when our drivers arrived...walking with our McDonald's.  Our vans were behind the hotel so they must have stayed pretty close.

Loaded up and headed out. They assured us they knew knew how to get to the Monastery. We were driving and then stopped at a gas station to get gas. The words out of Todd's mouth were "unbelievable. They couldn't get gas after they left us last night?" It was only 5:30 when we let them go so they could have easily gotten gas. Unfortunately the Chinese people do not have much common sense or think ahead. Not a big deal. It took an extra 10 minutes out of our morning. Back on the road.

Cameron had bites out of his sandwich before we were out of the
parking lot.  He was starving.

The boys laughing and entertaining themselves again.

These workers were lined up for their morning instructions.
This is common in China.

The drive.

We arrived at the Hanging Monastery. It looked pretty cool. Bought our tickets and went in. We walked up the steps to get to the monastery. Again, it smelled great with lilacs. We started up into the monastery. Todd made it by hanging on to the wall. We were way up in the air and the railings were questionable. Todd is not a fan of heights and this was sitting too well with him. When the steps went up to go to the next Todd said he was going to break the rules and go back down the way he came. It was suppose to be one way only. He had had enough. The rest of us continued to check the whole thing out. It was very interesting how this was built on the side of a mountain.

Getting our tickets.

Todd and Cameron are ready to go up in the
Hanging Monastery.

My family.

This bridge was very wobbly.

Cameron with the dam.

Buddha rubbing Buddha.

Crazy steps.

Huh?  What kind of route are we on?

This is where Todd started not liking the walk.

 

Marcela holding on for dear life.

Along the way we took a lot of photos. And of course, we were part of the attraction. People wanted their picture taken with Marcela and Alejandro. A guy wanted Cameron to take his picture with his son. Another guy wanted his picture with Ileana. What do these people do with these pictures?

One of the praying spots.

That was a long way down.

 

Pretty cool place.

Cameron explaining to Todd what he saw.

The boy Cameron had to get his picture with.

Cute picture.

Cameron wanted to take a picture of us.

And another one.

The kids taking in the scenery.

Heading out of the Monastery.

Amazing.

 

They all agreed...it was a long way up.

Back across the bridge.

All the boys...Todd, Fredy, Alejandro, Alfredo, and Cameron.

Leo showed Todd how to make the bowl make noise.
Mr. Xue bought a turtle.

 

Todd had to have the last beer before leaving.

Back in the van for what we figured was a 6-7 hour drive back to TEDA. YIKES! It was 11:00. It was smooth sailing on a highway until about 12. We went through several tunnels. A couple of them were 5km long. We then were on a very curvy road going through hills. All of a sudden the drivers were on their walkie talkies. Todd was following the GPS on his phone and had just said we were going to need to make a decision on which way we were going to go. We pulled over so we thought this is what they were discussing. Two guys on motorcycles showed up and another guy. We got out of the van to stretch our legs. I was talking Ileana and she said the mountain slid down onto the road so we couldn't go that way anymore. Oh great.

Ileana was listening to the conversation.  Too bad she couldn't
understand it. 

12:30. We turned around and one of the motorcycle guys (we will call him the mayor like what happened in Yesanpo) led us around to another way around the mountain slide. The mayor stopped and told our drivers how to continue and asked them for money. We aren't sure how much they gave him but he seemed happy.

Following the Mayor.

 

The road we continued on was dirt and rock and extremely bumpy. Crazy. Alfredo called it the barf road. We were on this "road" for over 2 hours. We encountered traffic jams with giant trucks, sharp turns, hills, and a road block with a log across the road where the locals wouldn't move it until we paid 20 RMB ($3). While going downhill Mr. Xue was beginning to go to fast for my liking. It was downhill on dirt with huge drop offs. I told Todd I was beginning to get stressed out. He started telling Mr. Xue to slow down. It was insane.

Carrasco's van.

At one point we were stopped by trucks trying to pass each other.
Ale and Marcela jumped out of the van to play on the equipment.

 

Two hours of road like this.

 

This adventure was crazy.

This truck driver went by us cracking up laughing.  He was probably thinking
"This is no place for two mini vans."  He was right.

This is where we had to pay to continue on.

The only pretty thing we saw.

Finally a real road. It's was a miracle. Our insides were so shook up. That was one crazy ride. We were stopped. They had to decide which way to go. A police car pulled up and Mr. Xue asked which way. They said right so that is the way we went. A lot of truck traffic to deal with but ok ride. The boys kept asking if we were almost home. We had no clue where we were so we could not answer that question.

We were going through a scary town and I said we should find a bathroom. Todd said we would have better luck at a gas station. Two minutes later we stopped at a gas station. We knew immediately it was going to be scary but we had to go. I walked in, looked, thought for a minute, and...nope, couldn't do it. Totally disgusting. So we went outside the building on the ground. There was no other choice. First time for me peeing outside in China.

Boys  bathroom.  Cameron took the picture.

Girls bathroom.  Terrible.

Back on the road. We saw all kinds of things while driving. We saw the poorest of "towns". A town that was having a carnival or something...lots of people with a jumpy jump and little rides. We saw a little girl squatting on the side of the road with her pants down with a big turd coming out of her rear. We saw what had to be Nut Town because there were a lot of roadside booths selling walnuts. We saw a ton of tillers for sale in many different towns and even a cart with a guy driving with a tiller in the back. He obviously bought one. So, the driving wasn't a total bust. Oh, and for our music entertainment we listened to the same 15 songs over and over for 7 hours. AND we didn't get lunch so we snacked on food in our snack bag which was the furthest thing from healthy but at least it kept us from starving. We are all going to need to work out twice tomorrow.

Finally on the interstate with the hammer down. We arrived home at . Everyone was happy to be out of the car. We had a great weekend despite our crazy drive home. Datong definitely had a couple cool attractions and it was worth the trip. We ordered Jacky's for dinner, showered, skyped with my parents, and went to bed. 



Anyone find this disturbing?