Pages From My Passport: 36.5 Hours of Travel and the Shaolin Temple

*Written 10 July 2011*

We left Little Likeng a little before noon on the Seventh. After a minibus to Wuyuan, a bus to Huang Shan, a taxi to the train station, a rickshaw ride and a visit to our favorite skewer boys, a train to Hefei, a train to Bengbu, a taxi to Bengbunan station, a high speed rail to Zhengzhou (where we met a really nice Georgetown alum named Christina, teaching English in Zhengzhou), and then a walk to our hotel, we finally made it through 36.5 hours of travel.

The Ninth was spent recovering from the exhaustion and the one hour of sleep I fit in, out of the day and a half of traveling.

Zhengzhou is a surprisingly large city - with all of the worst aspects of Shanghai and Beijing combined. Overcrowded, smoggy, under construction, and teeming with shops and malls. Zhengzhou's only redeeming qualities are the mouth watering array of street food (unlike the food we've seen elsewhere) and in serving as the closest rail station to the Shaolin Temple.

Last night we stumbled upon a magical alley with vendors galore. We had spicy french fry type things, smokey ground fish hot dogs with spicy sauce and wrapped in a thin Asian tortilla, fried bread filled with spicy noodles, sweet and spicy shaved pork and lettuce sandwiches, squid skewers, dumpling balls, and a sandwich best described as an Asian taco. Chinese food is super complicated, but so easy to describe - frickin' delicious.

At 9:40 AM we embarked for the Shaolin Temple, the birth of kung fu and Zen Buddhism is East Asia. The temple complex was huge and insanely touristy, but it was worth the trip. I've wanted to visit this sacred site for years. The Shaolin Temple was mostly rebuilt in the '80s and even as late as 2004, after having been largely destroyed in the 1920s during war. Despite this, the essence and character of the temple still shone through. We spent a few hours there, basking in said essence, taking pictures, and contemplating life.

We managed to find a bus from there back to Zhengzhou, where we overendulged in street food once more. In a few hours, we will board a train to Hua Shan - one of our most anticipated destinations!