After breakfast
downstairs we went back to the room to pack, have showers and
generally kill time before we had to check out. We then left our bags
at reception, went to New Day for some lunch and then returned to the
clothes shop with the humourless staff, where Kate tried on lots of
dresses but still didn't buy any. We then wandered back to the street
that had hosted the night market last night to have a look at the
permanent clothing stores, but we didn't see anything we liked there
either, so we walked down to the lake and sat for a while on a bench.
The girls played on a tree growing out over the water and were soon
commandeered for some photos. Zoe then spent quite a while chatting
to some local girls keen to practice their English. At one point, the
girls came running over to tell me that they had seen a turtle. I
went over to where they had been standing, and a local man pointed
out into the water and told me to look out for bubbles. Sure enough
the surface of the water was soon broken by a violent eruption of
surprisingly large bubbles. They were followed not long after by an
even more surprisingly large dark, brown head. This was clearly an
absolutely enormous turtle.
I later went on
online to see if I could found out anything about the turtle and
discovered that it has its own page on Wikipedia. There's some
controversy over its classification – some experts consider it to
be a distinct species (in which case, it's the only known living
specimen), while others consider it to be a Yangtze giant softshell
turtle, in which case it's one of four known living specimens.
Another specimen from the lake, killed by a local fisherman in 1967,
weighed 200 kilograms and measured 1.9 metres in length, so yes, a
very big turtle.
Eventually, we
started heading back towards our hotel, taking a little detour up the
street with all of the cafes, stopping at one for some iced coffees
and smoothies, Afterwards, we did a bit more clothes shopping. By
this point we were getting a little bit desperate. In a few weeks,
we're going to be staying at a high-end luxury resort (I've managed
to sort out a commission) and we really need some nice new clothes so
we don't scare the paying guests. Thankfully, we finally found a nice
shop where Kate bought a nice dress and I bought a nice shirt.
Then it back to New
Day for dinner and an emotional farewell from the staff, who had come
to know us quite well, back to the hotel to get our bags and into a
taxi to the train station. I had a brain-freeze when I was paying the
driver – the sort of thing that's always a risk when you're dealing
in a hyper-inflated currency with too many zeroes in it – and
overpaid the driver by a factor of ten.
Ahead of us was an
old man struggling with what was obviously quite a heavy bag. He kept
having to stop and put it down, before lifting it again, walking a
short distance and putting it down again. I offered to carry it for
him and he gratefully assented. When we got to the stairs down to the
platform, I saw an old woman struggling with a child's stroller, so I
reached over with my only free hand and grabbed hold of one end of
that as well.
When we got onto the
train, we found our compartment, which was quite something – faux
wood panelling, air conditioning and, joy of joys, a power outlet. We
were in for a fairly rocky ride, however, as we were back on the
narrow gauge we had travelled on through Russia and Mongolia.
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