My trip to the Heavenly Lake may have been the strangest day of my life. Catching the bus to start on the 3 hour bus ride wasn’t so bad, but then as we got started, and just as we got out of town the bus randomly pulled over to the side of the road so the bus driver could to pee in the trees. Our tour guide on the bus was a not particularly nice individual, and she shouted at him the whole time he was gone, interrupting her ranting only to answer her phone in a super sugary sweet voice. Later on, I saw her shove the poor bus driver so hard he tripped, and then tried to snatch his phone away. This was not a kind lady.
As we got closer to the lake, it became clear that everyone else on the bus was going on a tour of some kind except for me. I found this ironic, as I was probably the only one who actually needed help figuring out where I was going. However, it turned out to be a delightful thing to not be on tour since I’d brought my lunch (the spicy peanuts were tasty; the “cake stuffed with beef floss” not so much) and had a chance to walk around the lake and picnic instead of sticking with the crowds at the south end of the lake.
To get to the lake, we all got off of tour bus #1 in order to get on to the Heavenly Lake shuttle buses that careened up the mountains at breakneck speeds, threatening to throw the entire crowd off the steep cliffs as we went up the switchbacks. The only pay back for that nail biting ride was that when we got on the bus, it was desert, with no trees to speak of , mostly flatlands, and dry and dusty. When we got off the bus at the top, we were in the middle of a lovely, if not quite tranquil, pine forest, with the typical fake tree stumps singing Chinese folk music as you walked from the parking lot to the lake.
As I started to walk around the lake, a young Chinese guy started at about the same time. We leapfrogged for awhile as each of us would stop to take pictures, and then as we walked along, he just gently reached out to take my camera, and gestured that I should get into the picture. After offering to take his picture as well, he just sort of followed me like a puppy around the lake, randomly stopping to grab my camera at places he felt I should have a picture of. He hardly spoke any English, so it was an oddly silent sort of walk. When I had to turn around to come back to meet my tour bus, he turned and followed me! His name was Li Shou, and he kept going back around the lake until we met up with someone who could take our picture together, then suddenly he said “I have to go! Bye bye!” and walked away…
When I got back to the main entrance for the lake, I stopped to get some water, and the girl there got very excited to practice her English with me. I had about 30 minutes until I had to leave, so she walked me through all of the touristy stuff in her shop, and we tried on hats and jewelry, and she’d walk around with her arm in mine, chattering away. She’s working at the tourist shop as an internship for the university. Again, it was just so unexpected to have her take me by the arm and walk me around for half an hour- she was very sweet.
When I finally got back to the bus, my very angry, and not so very nice tour guide would not let me back on the bus in spite of the fact that I had a ticket. Instead, she grabbed me by the arm, and shoved me onto another bus saying firmly “Bus. Urumqi” The new tour guide grabbed my arm and pushed me down the aisle to the back row of the bus, and would not let me sit anywhere else.
After two miserable hours in the back of bus #2 on a very bumpy road, we arrived at a tourist trap type place, and I opted to stay on the bus. The bus driver insisted that it was the end of the line, and that I had to get off. He even found a couple of girls who were on the bus who spoke English to come and tell me this. I was totally lost; we were nowhere near where I had gotten on bus #1, and no one could show me where we were on a map. I tried to catch a taxi back to my hotel, since taxis are so cheap here, and I could get anywhere I needed for $2-3. Unfortunately, it was rush hour, and after 20 minutes of trying to flag down a taxi, I walked back over to the bus, which was still parked in the parking lot. The driver did not look happy to have me back, and looked up gleefully to point to bus #1, which was now pulling into the parking lot. Tour guide #1 looked even less happy to see me, but put me back on bus #1, and took me back to the starting point. I’m still not 100% sure what happened, but it was a miserable hour trying to get things sorted out. I was lost, and confused, and tired, and I may or may not have cried.
Fortunately, dinner was enough to remind me of how much I like the Chinese people! As I walked into the restaurant, 3 waiters greeted me, excited to practice their very limited English. They all three hovered over me as I read the menu, and when I wasn’t getting to the pages they wanted fast enough, they turned the pages for me, and made recommendations. As I left the restaurant later, I could still hear one of the waitresses in the back practicing to herself, loudly, saying “Nice to meet you!” again and again. She was so proud of herself, and after a hard day, I needed a reminder that not all Chinese people are like nasty tour lady #1.
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