As promised, here is the account of my temple stay :)! It was a great experience, but definitely not what I was expecting.
7:00 am. Saturday, April 5th: I wake up from a short night, genuinely excited to go out of Shanghai “by myself” for the first time!
I check one last time my bag, wondering if I really needed to bring with me Morocan oil for my hair, or this mascara, “just in case”. I decide to go with my glamorous needs, but remove my laptop, and my Ipod: guess I can at least get technology-free for a few days!
I meet my friends, and we get a cab to the railway station.
Then things start to get a bit more complicated.
I was actually not the mastermind behind the project. The guys invited me to join them, sent me some information about the temple over email, and just asked me to give them the money for the tickets. What I did not know is that they did not book a train directly to the temple village. They booked only a bus to the nearby city of Hangzou…
Here starts the nightmare.
After 5 hours of bus, instead of normally 3, we arrived at Hangzou. Hopefully we had a native Chinese speaker in our group, who managed to understand that the bus station to the village of Lin’An is in the opposite part of the city. Honestly, I don’t know how we would have done without him!
We then had to unearth cab drivers who were willing to take us there, because apparently there was too much traffic in town, and they did not want to get stuck for hours.
The thing is that, it was already 2 in the afternoon, and the temple only admits visitors until 6pm. We had to make it on time, or we would have to sleep on the streets as there is no hostel in Lin’an.
We finally made it to the bus, and one hour after, arrive at Lin’An. Relieved to see that we will indeed definitely make it on time, we go for a snack at a local noodle place…before finding that the establishment is only “C Rated” for food sanity….Fortunately, we did not catch anything!
We then tried to take a cab to the temple…but problem, we could not find any taxi driver who knew how to go there. A group of about 15 men discussed where the temple could possibly be, and after quite a long lapse of time, found one man who was willing to go there…for a little bit more than the normal taxi fare. Well, guess those Chinese men knew how to do business!
We finally arrived at the temple after 8 hours of traveling…hourray!
The monastery was very silent. It was composed of three little temples, two comfortable dormitories, men and women bathrooms, an obsolete kitchen and a dining room.
I was quite astonished to discover that there was only one monk leaving there! However, he was the exact stereotype of how I pictured a monk: a smiling, patient, sweet man. I was amused anytime he would talk to me in Chinese, and I would look at him wide-eyed open not having any idea of what he was saying…
(Yes, one of the meals in these photos was our “breakfast”. It is pretty different from the Western ones!)
Another great surprise was definitely the meals. Since the food is provided by the temple, I was waiting for something very modest, like a soup and some rice. The meals at the temple stay were in fact truly authentic and delicious!
It is an old lady who spends her days preparing the vegetables, which all come from the temple’s garden. We had Peking bolchoi, fresh cucumber, stir fried eggplants, roasted tofu, soy marinated bamboo, spicy peanuts…A true delight!
After filling our bellies with a forest of soy stir fried bamboos, we decided to take a look at the neighboring village. On our way, we enjoyed the view, the fields of golden flowers, the verdant mountains…and real wild bamboos. I never saw that before!
If the nature itself was picturesque, it was however highly polluted. The river was flooded with plastic waste. It was even more worrying as some women would wash their clothes in the aforesaid river.
Darkness felt, and we agreed to celebrate what promised to be an unforgettable weekend by buying some fireworks. Chinese fireworks are not as colorful as the Western ones. They are made principally to “scare demons”, and thus, just make a few sparks but a lot of noise!
After a relieving night, we woke up at 6 and gobbled some noodles before taking a shuttle to another temple. Situated in the heights of the nearby mountains, I found this temple even more impressing that the Jade Buddha one!
It was sunny outside, which accentuated the sumptuous colors of the edifice.
In the tower that you can see in the photos, the floor and the walls were covered of a white carpet-like material. There was a repetitive music playing from a radio near a Buddha statue. The structure of the building was that of a spiral, which ended in the center of the room. In each spiral were thousands and thousands of funeral urns!
After the visit, we went back to the village and wandered around. Some kids were chasing us, trying to get the attention of the “laowais” or foreigners! Some of them looked more scared than really curious, which made me laugh hard.
We just ate, but I could not help but to buy a truck of pastries at a local shop. I particularly liked a twisted egg roll, which apparently is one of Chinese’s favorite snack!
We were walking back home when we saw our neighbors, playing with their kids outside. And, out of nowhere…they invited us over to have lunch and tea! I was extremely surprised as they received us as if we were kings.
One of the women offered us some cold vegetable dumplings, wrapped in a green dough that I have never seen before. We also enjoyed a Dragoon leaf tea. I got to discovered two new meals!
Then, they suddenly told us to clear up the table, lifted the wooden plank on which were laying our meals…and under was a Mahjong table!
They thought us how to play this Chinese game which is totally addictive. I loved it. We played for hours, before we had to go back to the temple for diner. I will never forget how welcoming and hearty this family was to us!
I woke the next morning and looked at the temple one last time. I discovered this old photos of the monk, and the lady when they were young. They were laying on this table, in the dark.
The monk then got into the temple. As I was asking if it was really him on the photos, he nodded. He took a red ceremonial sheets and wrapped it around my neck. We then prayed together in front of every statues of the monastery.
Time flew by so quickly this weekend…
A Frenchie in Shanghai 