I left my hotel in Hengshan, China and was so happy to be moving on from a small city that had an array of pollution problems. The temperature was very high and while walking to the very dirty train station I had to side step slicks of restaurant waste and oil, while holding my breathe so I did not inhale the smoke from garbage burning. I had a one hour wait until the train I was to board left for Yueyang, Hunan, I did not know what to expect from this new city. The scenery from the train window was for the most part farms; every so often we crossed a river, they all seemed to be used for industrial use.
My luck changed with the new city, my hotel was exceptional...actually beautiful; the staff was very friendly, with good English skills. After breakfast on the next morning I went up on the hotel roof for some photo's before I walked to the Yueyang Tower. The Yueyang Tower is one of 4 famous towers in China; it was originally built around 1,700 years ago and was rebuilt during the Song Dynasty (960-1127)
There is a temple up by the tower which is the norm for China
The Tower is the highest point for this city of Hunan province and from up there I could see many boats and cargo ships using Dongting Lake, which is China's 3rd largest inland lake.
The visibility was just okay since the heat haze hampered the view. Although the temperature was about 40 degrees, I walked and walked on this day; I think I was in search of something that I never found. There was a real barrier with language, most everyone I tried to converse with did not know English.......friendly enough though. One humorous site was a sign that had English and Chinese, it said, "caution men at work", and here they were.
I got back to my nice hotel room and the air conditioner, the next day I planned to check out Dongting Lake. In the morning I ate so much food for breakfast so that I did not have worry about energy and I headed to the lake. I had to walk a lot further than it looked to be from my hotel roof but I made it; there was about a 4 metre wide walkway for as far as the eye could see. This was a huge undertaking and I could tell that when it was new it was very extravagant; unfortunately the walkway was showing it's age. Motorcycles were driving on the path and where there were 6 guys fishing there was garbage strewn all around. There was an old chairlift crossing the lake, the cars were all rusty and it looked like it had not operated in about 20 years. There was a public washroom where the excrement goes directly into the lake.
There were kids swimming across the lake so it must be popular with the locals.
I boarded a non-smoking bus, where the driver was smoking, and headed to the fast train station; my next destination was to be Wuhan, Hubei.
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