Day 3 (Shaolin)

Thursday 5^th July: Shaolin Temple  J

We were off to Shaolin Temple for the day.  No rain this morning, it looked like a promising day and it was. We bought our tickets and took a bus for Shaolin Temple or so we thought. China is surprising: as the domestic tourism is developing, so are tours and scams of all sorts. When the bus stopped, we were handed out tickets and asked to pay for tickets for a tour of 5 places to visit. All we wanted was to go to Shaolin but didn’t know exactly where we were. Luckily, we met two Chinese men who were in the same bus as us and showed us where to go to board another bus that would, this time, take us to our correct destination. A lady there tried to make us pay for tickets but we refused and explained we had tickets for the temple. She left. Second bus of the day. Suddenly, the driver tells us the two Chinese men that you can’t eat or drink at the temple and that amazingly enough, there was a restaurant on the way! This is quite typical in China. So, we stopped and had lunch there which was actually very nice: in the middle of nowhere with home-grown vegetables. It turned out to be a good idea.

Once at the temple, we were greeted by a great expanse of land called “The Shaolin Scenic Spot”, with gardens, paths to caves, temples and walks in the forest. An afternoon is not enough to discover everything there is to see but it was a lovely breath of fresh air. Of course, the first stop being the Kung Fu Academy it was crowded with people. There, we watched a show of young boys doing Kung Fu, and very skilled at that. As we continued our walk along the gardens, we got to the temple and although crowded, it is a beautiful place. Augustin wished his Chinese had been good enough to be able to talk to the monks as some acted as guides.

At the Temple

One low point, though: Leo was minding his own business and climbing one of the giant tortoise statues when he was grabbed by a Chinese man (we noticed that many of the tourists were Chinese that probably came from different parts of China discovering their culture but had not all seen many foreigners- their reactions towards us being that of stares, once again, laughs and generally uneducated, however bad that sounds!) who dragged him off the statue insisting he had his picture taken with his child. As I heard Leo shouting, I motioned to the man not to touch Leo and Augustin stood in front of him. Leo has been touched many times before but never pulled and dragged. That was not pleasant at all.

Leaving the temple, we took a hike in the forest and explored for the rest of the afternoon. Quite a lovely place! In the evening, we asked people for a street food and found ourselves a street bbq just the way we like them. A good day!