May Day Holiday 2 - Qiandao Lake

We left at seven the next morning to drive an hour up the mountains to a reservoir called Qiandao Hu, which translates to Thousand Island Lake.  When they created this reservoir, it left thousands of small islands as the water level rose.  

Cruise boats lined up waiting for passengers.

First view of Thousand Island Lake.

We cruised for about three hours, had lunch, and then the boat stopped at one of the islands where you could take a cable car ride to the top.  The lines were so long because many cruise boats like ours had landed at the same time.  We only had about an hour and a half to spend on the island and the majority of the time was spent standing in line trying to get on the cable car.  Almost as soon as we got to the top, we had to get back on the car for the ride down.  Eva would liked to have hiked it, but I knew my knee wouldn’t have handled it, and she didn’t want to abandon me to try and handle the cable car on my own.  

We noticed this bridge going over the lake and then wondered where the cars went because it seemed that there was no road on the mountain.  Well, that was because the road went into the mountain through a tunnel!

When we got to the part of the lake where there were many islands, I started noticing these directional signs along the way for the boat captain to follow. 

This part was really pretty to go through.

The boat had the option of paying 700 RMB extra to pay for a private room on the top deck.  It included a lunch with it.  A fish head dish and several others.  It is still a little unnerving to have a bowl brought in with the fish’s head gaping out of it at you.  Eva kept trying to feed us the fish.  She even went so far as to carefully pick out the meat for us that has either the largest bones, so we can pick them out, or no bones at all.  

Our special fish dish for lunch because we paid for the special room.

It was really nice being in the room by ourselves.  The main room downstairs was very crowded, and they had us packed in with ten people to a table.  It was hard to get in and out of.  I was sitting on the open end and people were trying to crawl over me all the time, and I had to keep slowly getting up and down.  The private room saved me from all of that.  

Views of the surrounding mountains along the lake.

A village along the shores of the lake.  It stretched for several miles with a few up on the sides of the mountains.

We stopped at a second island called “Lock Island.”  This island has several kinds of rock statues depicting different kinds of locks and keys.  We walked this island and crossed a short bridge to a second island.  There was a third island to cross over to, but I was tired, so I encouraged Eva, Pang and David to go by themselves while I rested in the shade.  

Our view of the many islands from the cable car on the first island.

The people attach the locks to the arches and fence structures to make a pledge of eternal love.  There were a lot of locks, this is only a small part of them.

After we got back on the boat, we spent some time in the open back end of the top floor of the boat.  While we were there, we had a lot of people want to take pictures with us.  It got a little cold after a while, so we went back to the room.  I had stayed with Eva, and Pang had gone back to the room, but David was gone.  He wasn’t in the room, and then Eva came and said that he was in the room next to ours.  A Chinese family with a son and a daughter were in that room, and David was talking with them.  The fifteen year old daughter, Jamie, was trying to practice her English.  She was really nervous, but was doing pretty well, after she got going.  Her twelve year old brother was a lot shyer and didn’t want to join in as much as Jamie did.  

Two of the girls from our tour group wanted a picture with David.

Here we are with Jamie.  She didn't smile her big beautiful smile for the picture.  It really is one of the most beautiful smiles I've ever seen!

After a while, we moved back to our room and then Jamie’s family came in there and brought another young girl with them, a twelve-year old, named Lynn.  She mostly just wanted to meet us as Jamie had told her about us. After a little while, one of Lynn’s friends came looking for her, so she joined us.  Then Jamie’s family all came in again and the mother of one of the girls.  We kept talking and enjoying the time, when all of a sudden, we noticed that we were getting ready to dock back at the port.  We all had to hurry and gather our stuff and get off.  We were the last ones off the boat, except the crew.  

Sitting in our cabin with Lynn, Leah, and Jamie.

Jamie's mom gave us each these book marks.  They are made from leaves that have been bleached out and them painted on.

We drove back to the town, had dinner, and got back to the hotel.  We were in for an even earlier start tomorrow for the hike to Yellow Mountain, so we needed to get to bed.