Kong Tong Shan – Pingliang, China

Visited the Kong Tong Shan monastery atop the mountains near Pingliang (there’s nothing else in town).
Despite only getting two lines in my guidebook it was well worth a whole days excursion as the multitude of temples are spread across two mountain tops. After recent exertions on the Great Wall (for which I got the t-shirt, local size XXXXXL…) I was much happier climbing the 2100m worth of stone steps, although it was a bit humbling to see a little old lady had done the same trip carrying a large fridge full of bottles and was selling it for 14p, laughing at the lazy tourist.

[Have finally tried the local wonder drink – cold green tea, flavoured with a little lemon and containing menthol, so it also cools you down every time you breath, which is quite often when climbing these steps]

Spent ages wandering round the little temples, then climbed over to the other peak and crossed the ‘Bridge to Heaven’, which it turns out is a rickety suspension bridge over to a pile of bricks, watched over by an opium addled monk in a deckchair.

Back in Pingliang I went to the night market to get a cheap dinner. Saw a tray of stuffed intestines, but they didn’t look too fresh and even the locals looked doubtful so gave it a miss. Ended up with an enormous bowl of noodles from a chap who was very proud to have the only foreigner in town eating outside his restaurant. He also let me try his special kebabs, which turned out to be mutton fat on a stick. Couldn’t finish it all so I asked my host to offer it to a blind tramp, who seemed very grateful until another tramp in a suit stole the bowl and started wolfing it down. Cue a rubbish tramp fight, which only stopped when the restaurant owner wandered over with a meat cleaver.