Life of a Former Insurgent

Aye, so I'll say "Welcome back, Nelthy. You've gone 2 days without internet."

Notice I'm absent for around more than 2 days and 2 nights? I was out to Wutai Mountains in Shanxi Province. Since I'm here, I'll tell y'all my story anyway, even though a 2 day absence is not a big deal, but I like telling stories anyway.

First of all, we had to take a taxi to Wutai Mountains from Datong, and that alone, is tough. The road to Wutai Mountains is more than 200 kilometers, and a lot of taxi drivers are unwilling to accept a reasonable price. After a long time waiting for taxi, my dad found one driver willing to take us to Wutai Mountains. However, the price is 1100 RMB (around $150) total, because we had to buy the entrance ticket to the tourist destination. The taxi driver claims he will buy us the tickets for a lower price, but we are all skeptical since he is asking for an exorbitant price, but we went along anyway, since it's hard enough finding a willing driver.

The taxi driver, however, cannot stop talking to people with his cell phone. It was a little bit unnerving, but after several hours of driving, we came upon a road split into two, a car, and two men. We were asked to get off the taxi, and ride along with the taxi driver's friend. My father and I wasn't too happy with this predicament, and the taxi driver's friend does not look like a friendly person to say the least (he looks like a thug, to be honest). When we came upon the gate to Wutai Mountains, the driver 'bribed' the gatekeeper, my dad said. Then he drove to his friend's home and gave us four used tickets. Our dad was smart, and knew the ticket was used, so he asked for another one, and we finally got the real tickets. We drove our merry way into the hotels...

And finally we reached our hotel, and it's a 5 star hotel apparently. However, when we went into our room, it's... disappointing. The room only had a small bathroom with a shower, the smallest TV I've ever seen inside a hotel, and the room wasn't too hot. Also, the hotel had no elevators, and it's several stories tall. Compared to the four star hotel we stayed in Datong, the four star hotel had a bigger bathroom completed with a shower and bathtub, bigger television with international channels, bigger beds, and reliable internet connection. When I plugged in the cable that connects my laptop into the internet, the internet did not work, and we asked what is wrong with the cable. After an inspection, the attendant told us to wait, and we waited. After several hours, the attendant did not come back, and we had dinner in the hotel anyway. The food wasn't too bad, however. After dinner, we went back into our room, and some time passed until an attendant came and offered us to switch rooms, because the room had no suitable internet connection. We refused, since we're accustomed to the room, and so I had to spend a night without internet connection.

The next day, we spent the whole day traveling around the Wutai Mountains. At first, we went to this temple and monastery, and a large dog appeared. It seemed friendly enough, and I had an idea. I told my little brother to throw a chunk of snow, and he did so. When my brother threw the snow, the dog jumped up, and seemed to try to catch the bit of snow. After playing with the dog for a while, throwing snowballs into the air, and having the dog catch the snowball and bring it to us, the dog followed us! We can't seem to get rid of the dog, so it followed us for a long time, into the temple. The dog caused a mighty bit of disruption. There was a cat, and the dog attacked it. The skirmish between cats and dogs caused a ruckus, and a man shouted at us, since the dog followed us all the time, and we were thought to be its owners, even though the dog does not belong to us. After the scene, we came across a man who threatened to call the police for 'disturbing the peace'. We saw police cars everywhere after that, but they did not confront us. I feel the urge to laugh at that man who tried feebly to threaten us with some cops. We ditched the dog after hitching inside a bus.

Then the next day, we took the bus back to Taiyuan, but the bus traveled slowly, so we had to drop in the middle of nowhere, and take a taxi back to Datong. However, no taxi driver seems to want to accept a reasonable sum of money, as always, and the fact that Datong is around 200 kilometers away. After asking around 8 taxi drivers, there was this one that is willing to take us to Datong for a price of 500 RMB ($70, around that much). After traveling for several hours, we passed through a toll gate, and a man loudly accosted us after passing through. I had not much of an idea what the man is up to, but it seems that the man wants us to switch taxis, since the taxi we're traveling in came from a different town, and it seemed reasonable enough to switch us into a local taxi and take the man back into the taxi's native city. However, pretty soon, the man had his friends swarm the taxi, since the taxi driver refuses to make us switch taxis, and after a thug attempted to open the taxi door, we closed it and that gave me an idea. I locked the taxi door, and my little brother did the same, too. That seemed to anger the lot, since they're attempting to force us out, but the taxi driver was kinder, and refused to let us out. We were scared since there is a lot of people, and they all look pretty nasty. We told the taxi driver to drive ahead faster, and then we wormed ourselves out from that situation. If we had a different taxi driver that is less genial, then we could have gotten ourselves into a serious situation. I mean, seriously, you cannot force a passenger out from a taxi and switch, and even force the taxi driver to make that decision. The taxi driver is responsible for bringing its passengers into their intended destination safely , and we were lucky to have a taxi driver that abides this rule.

That concludes my hectic trip.