Week 3
Day 5

It was 5.30 in the morning when we woke up and got prepared to go up Wudang Mountain again. We had breakfast at the same hotel again. I find that the breakfast here in Wuhan is all the same, despite which county you may be in. they contain noodles, egg, man tou, etc.
We boarded the tour bus and went on the winding path of 108 turns on Wudang Mountain. Dave was as usual sick from the turns, but he managed to hold out till we reached the top.s
We walked distance to the cable car station which was called the Jade Terrace Temple Cable car Station. There was a very long and trust me its long! Many people, mostly people from China were queuing up to take the cable car up. An hour passed and we were only moved a little. During this time, there were 1 or 2 people that actually climbed over the railing to cut the queue. There were some mumblings of unhappiness, but since it was just 1 or 2 people, it quickly died down. Another hour into the queue, a whole group of people was on the side of the railings beside us wanting to cut into the queue; this created an uproar among the people in the queue. Arguments arose and the guard who looked like 18 year old came over to solve the problem. The argument carried on for around 15 minutes with the old folks who were trying to cut queue saying that they have special priveleges, but they soon lost oout and went behind to queue up half an hour after, it was our turn to board the cable car. I boarded the cable car with Hwee Ping while Satish boarded with Sasi. It took around 25 minutes for the cable car to make a steep inclined ascend to the golden peak, which was the highest peak of Wudang Mountain. The scenery was beautiful with really natural rock formations with minimal manhandled formations. The cable car was a little creaky but safe to be on. The top was surprisingly packed full of people with lots of buildings. The buildings were quite old and the toilet, I think theres only 1 on top of the mountain was flooded with many people and really dirty!

We had a 15 minutes climb up the mountain to the golden peak. The stairs were really steep and when we reached the top, there were so many people that everyone was jostling around. We prayed a little but was quickly pushed till we were at the back of the temple, so we gave up trying to explore the place and bought some souvenirs before proceeding down the mountain. We bought an egg each and ate it on the cable car down. Before that, Satish attempted to take a picture of a cute small little girl, she cried immediately and everyone was staring at him. We took the bus back down the mountain. The bus went really fast and many people including Satish went sick. That’s where my first aid kit came into hand and luckily nothing other than the driver’s spit landing on Satish face happened.

We had a 6 hour drive after where the driver went against the traffic, made an illegal and dangerous turn. But we were unscathed and we thanked the driver despite putting all our lives in danger.

Seeing all the people of China’s behavior for so many days, it has been an eye opener for me to see people abusing their rights, for even old folks should respect the rules and not do things like cutting queue. The etiquette is really different and we have to adapt to this, yet retain our own etiquette.