Day FOURTEEN - 17 March 2013

Today is day fourteen. We had breakfast in the morning, buffet style. Although it was buffet style the dishes were still the same with bread being the main dish. We have fried banana which most of us like it and porridge. We checked out of the hotel and took an hour bus ride to the Lake of LuSui (陆水湖).

We take a boat and explore the various small islands. During the boat ride, we come across a lot of building and forest.

The first stop is the Lucky Island. We went there to explore. Firstly, we went inside a small place where there are artifacts of the olden days like coins and golden basin. There is also a counter that sells a paper worth 5 Yuan. This paper is no ordinary paper that it has stories of the origin of the surnames. I bought one to study about my special surname CHIAM! My surname actually starts from 2800years ago in the Jin Dynasty which is after the three kingdoms dynasty in the northern area.

After which we climb a number of stairs to reach to the temple. After the Wudang Mountain and Red Cliff trip we climbed for more than 1000 stairs and are getting used to it. We went to the temple to pray. At first we thought it is just normal praying like we do in Singapore however there was a monk who did some chanting and ask us what to do. They even ask for donations. I personally do not mind giving the donations so I put some money into the donation box and was given a slash.

A lady came to me and tells me that I can write my family name on the slash and tied it to the tree to get blessing. A friend of mine, Brandon, said that it was not necessary that I can just hang the slash there. Another friend, Kenneth, he went to write his family name on the slash as he want to get blessing for his family. HOWEVER, he was asked to give money not small amount but 100yuan to enable to write on the slash. Only after that, we know that it was a scam and we should not believe them so easily and give them the money. It was a pity for Kenneth and some other friends who also got scammed. But it’s ok! We went on with our tour and walked down the stairs to go back to our boat. As we walked we saw this machine that two person will sit on it and turn for many rounds just like a roller coaster ride at the theme park, a more scarier one as the machine can turn random rounds forward backward and sideways.

I supposed no one tried it as it just rain and the machine was near the end of the platform that we fear of falling down the slope behind the machine and injured ourselves. We continue to move on to another island called the exotic dragon island (神龙岛).

We went there and the first thing we see is the snake, real snake (python I think!). The snake was resting in the cage. We managed to see the body only as it was under a blanket. The body was huge! I can really imagine how big and long the snake is. Next we went to the small auditorium where we watch a performance there. It was a performance by the Thai people with singing and different dancing. We also watched a male who use leaves to blow a song for us and a singer who we suspect is a male because of the height. As it was raining, we took the boat back to the main island to get back to our hostel. The day ended with a normal dinner! Goodnights! J

p.s. There are no pictures as the internet keeps failing to load them!