Day Four

The next morning we had to be up by 7am, and were still unsure if we were headed back to Kaifeng. I was all for returning early, however, it became more important that Dread Tim have a place to put his suitcase (which later fell apart), so we headed on a random bus to the hostel. With no idea if the bus would take us there.

Somehow, these things work out well enough. Will was on the phone with the hostel but they were not quite as helpful as the people on the bus were- they knew the bus traveled from one train station to the other, and informed us to wait until the end. Luckily, the hostel is near the train station, only a five minute walk. So we walked to food (KFC for lunch, and breakfast was KFC and Baskin Robbins and I have little desire to return to KFC for a while), then moved to find our hostel.

The hostel was on the main road, near a bus stop, which was excellent. We also managed to buy a room with six beds, meaning one bed would be empty. So the Tims and I were on the bottom bunks, with Will and Adam on top. My bed was creaky. And all the beds were…incredibly hard. It was like sleeping on wood.

It was about 3pm when we decided to try and head to one of two places: The grottos, or the White Horse temple. We decided the grottos would need more time, so we went for the White Horse temple. It was about an hour by bus each way. Here are some videos from the temple.

We were told soon after we arrived to stop filming the military people and head monk that were in the temple, so we moved to places where they were not.

After the temple closed, we went to a shop, where I bargained on behalf of Dread Tim. It was quite fun. When we returned, we bought snacks and alcohol for a movie, and then brought them into the room. Then we left to find a real dinner, and we had by far the best meal I have tasted in China. It was delicious. I have no more words for how delicious it was other than “extremely”.

When we returned to the room, we watched a movie called “The Room” which has been dubbed the “Citizen Kane of bad movies”. It is pretty awful; only the mocking makes it better.

…Yes. Only the mocking.

Then, by 11pm, we were asleep in our hard, unfeeling beds.