I woke up early and made a side trip to a city called Shaoguan in northern Guangdong Province. I took the cheap train there in the morning, which was kind of crowded and uncomfortable. Once there I took a bus to Hanhua Temple, which is a little famous for the mummy of the 6th Patriarch of Zen Buddhism, Hui Neng. The body was in a sitting posture behind glass and looked almost like a sculpture. Actually I was the only westerner I saw there since the place isn’t in my guidebook.
On the way back, I had to wait in a quite long line at the train station for a ticket. The train was a little higher class for the return trip. Some Chinese guys talked to me, one in English. Here in south China I’ve noticed a lot of Chinese people trying to make friends with me, I think because I’m not in the main tourist areas of the country right now.