China, Asia, Climbing and Fixed Gear Bikes

Third day of our holiday and we tried a third skiing resort: Italian Dolomiti. I always heard about this resort because they were said to have the fastest chair lift. Their ski lift is the kind that detaches plus it has a bubble cover to protect from the wind. That is of course much nicer than the old slow open chair lifts in Wanlong, but the issue is the other two lifts in Dolomiti are just single t-bar lifts in German called „Tellerlift“. A „Tellerlift“ is usually only used for beginners or in very old ski resorts. They are slow and only transport people one by one.

In this resort the view around was nice with natural snow also on the surrounding mountains.

The „Tellerlift“ for accessing 3 advanced slopes only opened at 11am. We immediately went there. The lift attendant stopped us and said we need to be wearing helmets to be able to take this lift. We said we are wearing helmets and he said no, a cap does not count. I insisted that my Ribcap helmet cap is a skiing helmet. He was very skeptical, touched and squeezed the Ribcap and finally said yes, we can go. I love my Ribcap!

Today we only skied half a day as we wanted to also go to a public hot spring. We had lunch at Dolomiti. I thought it would be best to take Italian food so I ordered Spaghetti Bolognese which turned out to be „Penne“ Bolognese but still tasted good.

I also chatted with the Italian manager who told me about the history of Skiing in China. I was seeing the increasing amount of ski resorts as a sign that the market is growing. But maybe this development is a bit to fast for the market. Also the infrastructure is only partially developed. Here are some impressions of the partially dirt road leading to this ski resort and the farmer houses.

The main thing why the air was not so clear around here was the Zijin Mining Factory.

All in all I think it is a long way until the Chongli area with all the ski resorts will deserve a name like „Davos of the East“ which they are trying to use already today. But actually already the prices for 1 day skiing are 588.-RMB. That is higher than in almost any of the European ski resorts.

We then headed to Huailai for the Diman Hot Springs. Their website looked impressive and made me chose this hot spring rather than any other one in the area. I already expected many people in this public hot spring as it is already the second day of the New Year and many people might go out with their families. But I did not expect the venue just to one big open room with different baths and many people. Of course we were the only foreigners. The Chinese people would sit in the water and smoke despite the non-smoking signs. Others would spit into the water. And of course the noise level was high.

But it was nice to sit in a green tea hot bath or a red wine hot bath. Each pool had a different temperature. I was confused because I had seen pictures of outdoor pools and jacuzzi but I could not find them. I asked the staff and one lady just kept shaking her head, but that was probably just her thinking „oh my god, a foreigner with a long nose is talking to me and I do not speak English“ despite the fact that I was asking in pure Mandarin. I asked another person and she said yes, we just need to go out and all the way towards the direction of the front gate. I thought she was kidding.

I had heard that we could book a room so I started my quest on how to book. I turns out that can only be done in an office at the entrance gate to the whole area containing many buildings and a hotel and parking lots and stuff. It did not make any sense to me, but that was how it was. We asked if we can go out and come back in on the same ticket and they said yes, but only for 2 hours and we need to inform the staff.

When we wanted to go to the hotel restaurant we told the staff we wanted to go out and they said yes sure, go. We asked for our shoes and they said no, we will only get them after we leave and pay. So we went out in the flipflops they provided.

[Here is a suggestion for anybody wanting to go to this hot spring and having no money. Just find a pair of shoes that you want to throw away, the hot spring takes your shoes in exchange for their flipflops, but that is all they have. They have no name or contact detail or car number or anything. You can spend a full day inside from 8am to almost 11pm and indulge yourself in massages and all sorts of stuff. When you want to leave you just walk out with the flipflops but you will have to sacrifice your shoes.]

Of course they have no way to monitor how long we stay outside so we had a long dinner with Spanish wine that I had received as a Christmas present in Europe.

First day of the Chinese New Year – the year of the Water Snake – and we are woken up by fire crackers that are right outside our window. 5 minutes later the hotel room phone rings and they ask when we want to have breakfast or if they should bring it to us. We said we will be right there. It was 7:30am and anyway the time our alarm clock rang.

Today we were definitely the only guests in the whole hotel. There was not even coffee because they knew we did not drink any yesterday. They had 3 small bags of milk because yesterday we drank 3 bags. In that sense the hotel does feel like 5 star. You get a very personal service and exclusive feeling.

Today we went to the older but bigger ski resort Wanlong. We were hoping to find still a lot of powder snow in this resort.

It was a nice morning with blue sky. At least where we were. Actually if you look closely you can see the smog and air pollution in the South – the direction of Beijing – hanging as a band over the mountains.

After a full day of skiing I had frozen toes and fingers which took a while to defrost as this older resort does not have the convenient floor heating. On New Year’s Day most shops and even restaurants are closed but the most trendy place in Chongli village seems to still be the Popland serving ice cream and Taiwanese style drinks. We got a milk tea to warm up and to cover the time until dinner. We found an International Hotel that had a restaurant which was open and had many local families having big dinners together and taking family pictures.

Chinese New Year or also known as Spring Festival is a very big holiday in China. In mainland everything shuts down, most companies are closed fro 7 days and everybody goes to celebrate with their families. Natooke shop is also closed for 7 days. So I have time to go skiing.

We booked a supposedly 5 star hotel Yalong Bay for 288.-RMB per night that has a SPA and swimming pool, sauna and all the other things a 5 star hotel should have. We drove the 300km North-West of Beijing yesterday night and arrived a an almost dark hotel with 1 car parked outside. The only lady at the reception said that we need to drive up the hill to where our room was. I asked what time the swimming pool closes and she just looked at me and said those things were only open in summer. Aha.

So we drove up the hill to find a brick 3 story building that looked more like a 3 star hotel. A lady was already expecting us and showed us our room. The room was warm and clean with floor heating. We had to laugh because we knew it could not be a real 5 star hotel for that price.

But the nice thing was that we were almost the only guests. We had an almost continental style breakfast with freshly fried bacon and sausages and coffee. We asked for tea but they did not have any. Only when were finished a family of three came. And counting the yoghourt or milk packages us 5 were the only guests.

We went to a newly open ski resort called Genting. The Genting Grand hotel (unbelievably massive) was still half under construction and there were no cars on any of the 5 huge parking lots. So we parked right in front of the ski lodge and asked if they were open. She said yes.

And the great thing was there was powder snow! it was so nice and fluffy! That is the great part of having such dry and cold air. The snow stayed fluffy all day and as there were not so many people we had loads of untouched snow.

It was really nice. Of course the hills here around Beijing are more rolling hills and not extremely steep, but the summit of the resort was over 2000m high. The surrounding mountains also were covered in snow (which is not so usual around here) making it a really enjoyable experience.

It was nice that the ski lodge had floor heating everywhere. It is so nice to take off the ski shoes after skiing at -15 degrees all day and then warming the frozen toes on a warm ground.

We then drove back to our hotel to find a chain and lock around the entrance to the part where are room was located. There was no other entrance door.

After seeing that we already had the feeling that the hotel restaurant might no be able to offer us a New Year’s Eve dinner.There was nobody at the reception. But in a side building we found a lady that actually had a key yo the lock.

We went to Chongli village to have an early dinner in a more real 5 star hotel and then relaxed in their spa.