I woke up early to catch the first bus down the road to the city of Chengde. This is the kind of bus that picks up and drops off people anywhere along the road. And the bus that keeps squeezing in people no matter how full it gets. Since it was the holiday week, it sure was full. I’ve never seen it happen before, but at one point the driver waved off someone, saying the bus was actually full.
Once arriving, we found all the trains for today to Beijing were full and tomorrow has standing room only. However, the buses seem ok. First I visited Puning Temple, which had an amazing 22m tall, wooden, 42 armed, statue of Guanyin. All these buildings here had no electric lights. They don’t want to take any chances of fire. Puyou Temple, next door, did burn down during the Japanese occupation of this area and mostly only foundations remain. The other big place was Putuozongcheng Temple, a unique place modeled after the Potala Palace in Tibet. The outside is Tibetan style and then you are surprised by a carved out inside and a Chinese style building in the middle.
Today I learned it is better to be a foreigner in these Chinese temples over a Chinese. Everyone here, such as guides, try to exploit the Chinese need for good luck and superstition. This includes doing cheap tricks, fortune telling, telling them to pray a certain way after buying certain materials.
My friend met up with her friends in this city. They are husband and wife and we saw their expensive wedding photos. It is hard to tell they are the same people in the photos, since the studio makes everyone looks like movie stars with lots of makeup and costumes. They fill their home with huge versions of these photos on the walls.
All of us went to a restaurant and had some huge dishes of food. I eat a lot, but still could only finish only half the food. They were very generous and nice.