Home » China » Yunnan Province; China

MURRAY'S DIARY for the complete story.

Yunnan Province; China

Mar
2004-09-14 15:37:29

Displayed times (last time: ) Rating 4/5

Rating: 4.00 out of 5.00. 1 members have rated this article

lets see how drunk we can get at 3300m (Deqin)'. Beer comes in bottles of 640ml, but already after the first glass we feel a hangover headache on the backside of our heads. No idea what happened to the happy phase.

Deqin is not a city we like very much. There's a very obvious gap between poor, rich and tourists. Half of the population (or Chinese tourists) travels around in shiny new 4-wheel drives while others look like beggars and sleep on the street. The atmosphere is now and then aggressive and 'pushy'. We can't relax outside of our hotel room without being stared at from a distance that is for us too close.

Half of the people who sleep on the street are pilgrims, here for their pilgrimage to the Feilai temple and the close mountain of 6700meter. We are only 50 km away from Tibet, and we regret that we didn't 'study' the Tibetan culture before we left. We reach Feilai temple with a taxi. It's not so big but it's actually quite busy, luckily we are the only tourists here.

An old grandma walks around the temple, through a corridor, and we follow here. The four walls of the temple are covered with a series of bronze 'prayer' cylinders. Grandma swings every single one of them. I really thought these were brought back alive for the '7 years in Tibet' movie with Brad Pitt. Raymond walks behind me and starts rapping like in 'The Golden Child' with Eddy Murphy. Everyone takes it very serious and continues with another round around the temple.

Inside the temple people walk from Buddha to Buddha, leaving about 5 Jiao ($0,05) at every Buddha statue. It is dark in the temple and the light is being produced by the hundreds of candles in front of the Buddha’s.

I leave money (20 Yuan) in only one place, but I regret this. It would be a better idea to invest this money in a nice smelling environment. I could have bought 63 soap blocks for the same ...