Lake Yamzhou

Day 19

We woke up to another mediocre hotel breakfast but this time we'd shopped and could supplement. So, in addition to the hotel food I had a yogurt and some dried fruit. The dried fruit was salted, so that was a disappointment.

After breakfast I edited a few posts for this blog which I uploaded to Andrea's laptop but overstayed my welcome on it. Then I downloaded them to my cell so that I could post them while we were on the road lake Yamzhou.

We had a long drive to the lake much of it through very scenic countryside. We stopped several times at roadside overlooks that had a variety of souvenirs, a bathroom, and lots of people trying to get you to take photos with their animals (Tibetan Mastiffs, baby goats, and yaks) for 10RMB.

 At one of these stops the guide warned is that there was a two RMB fee to use the bathroom. I have tried not to bitch and moan about the deplorable lack of cleanliness and lack of toilet paper, paper towel, hot water (sometimes any water) in Chinese bathrooms. My wife and kids are doing enough for the entire family. However, I'm no fan of disgusting bathrooms so when Zachary asked why and the guide told him that it was because somebody cleaned these bathrooms I decided that I'd do my part to encourage clean bathrooms in Tibet and go even though I didn't need to. I felt totally ripped off.

The lake itself was beautiful. At 14,700 feet it was huge, with blue water and mountains on all sides.

Lunch was at a Tibetan restaurant about half an hour from the lake. It was disgusting. There were more flies than I'd seen anywhere, ever. All of the seating was outdoors. All the kids refused to eat and waited in the car. Andrea let the guide know how upsetting it was, and we were moved to a table on the edge with fewer flies. Andrea and I ate a small lunch. We feed the kids fruit and packaged cupcakes in the van and headed home.

When we checked in there was a half roll of toilet paper. We took it off the holder because the holder made it difficult to get at and put it on the bathroom counter. Before leaving today there was probably a third of a roll left. When I got back the roll was gone and I thought that they’d replaced it with a full one in the holder. No such luck. They didn’t empty the trash but they made the beds and stole our toilet paper.

After a break at the hotel we went to dinner at a different restaurant that had Tibetan, Chinese, Italian, and Indian sections on a menu that was written in English. Ari got spaghetti Bolognese and the rest of us ate Indian food. After dinner we got donuts from Dream Donuts a couple of doors down.

On the way back from dinner, with the guide already gone home, and only the driver who spoke no English remaining, we got into a discussion about the cultural revolution because Zachary did not know what it was. Joshua said it was no different than McCarthyism and I mangled the discussion by focusing on the scale of the tragedy instead of talking about the importance of checks and balances and a free press to put a stop to those kinds of excesses whenever and wherever they happen. Tomorrow I'll try to do a better job of being a parent.