Mini Holiday

~The Lake~

Our weekends in China are severely numbered and we’re trying to make the most out of our time here. So when Eliot has a weekend off we’re trying to soak up as much of China as we can before we head back to South Africa.
This weekend we went to Qian Dao Hu (Thousand Island Lake) which is a man made lake that was flooded when they damned up the nearby river. Basically, they flooded a mountain range and are now left with a lake that has over 1000 islands or islets.

I really wanted to camp here, but we couldn’t find, on the internet (at least in English), any place where they had camping. And even after being there we didn’t see any places, so we’re assuming the Chinese aren’t too into sleeping outside. We stayed in a hotel, which was so nice (Eliot’s booking) we could have easily spent the entire weekend there (but we didn’t).


~The Pool~

Qian Dao Hu is a beautiful place. On Saturday Eliot and I took a boat out to a couple of the various islands. The first one, the boat dropped us off at one end and we walked around to the other where the boat was then waiting to pick us up. It was gorgeous scenery but the only regrettable part is that they have very specific paths for the tourists to walk down, and it’s a perfectly manicured paved trail. Sometimes I feel like we miss out on seeing the more natural beauty of things. The second island we went to there were two paths and they were directing all the tourists down one of them and we decided to take the other one. A little lady that was on our boat came running after us, telling us we didn’t want to go down that way because it wasn’t very beautiful and there wasn’t anything to see. We told her we didn’t mind and that we would make our way back to the boat when it was time. It was a nice quiet path without all the tourists and had stunning surroundings. I don’t know what we missed out on not going the other way, but it was nice to get away from everyone else and do something on our own. The last island was called Snake Island where they have tons of snakes in cages and pits. The main attraction here is at one of the pits they have an auction to feed a mouse to a bunch of poisonous snakes. We quickly moved past that area and found a quiet spot near the water and enjoyed a beverage.


~View from Bird Island~


~Koi fish desperate for food~


~The island~


~Gorgeous Day :)~


~I wouldn't want to mess with this guy~


~Bamboo forest~


~Eliot thought these steps reminded him of the ones in Kill Bill that Uma Thurman had to carry giant buckets of water up and down.~


~Tiles on the rooftop~


~Lots of parks around the area~


~Eliot~


~Me~


~Rain moving across the water~


~Eliot~

On Sunday we went for a swim in the gigantic pool at our hotel and then decided to go out and explore Qian Dao Hu town. There wasn’t much to the town really, which was a bit disappointing. But we had a nice lunch and then had a foot massage down by the lake before making our way to the bus station to head home. It was a quiet relaxing weekend, which seems necessary these days to keep our sanity. Another place that reminds me of all the beautiful parts of China we’ll miss when we leave.