Up early for us today – we were at the nearest bus station at 7:15 and already our LP guide was letting us down – it was to be a day of mis-information from Lonely Planet. The guy in the ticket office could not give us a ticket to Zhinjin and we guessed that what he was telling us was that we needed to be at a different bus station. Asking (with gestures, pictures and symbols) a few people around we got some Chinese symbols written down and a taxi got us to the north bus station (slight rip off: £1 for a 60p ride we would later discover) where we got our bus. Windy but good roads led us through farmland and small ugly (concrete) villages as we listened to Scientific American pod casts (V thought the book ‘Eaarth’ by Bill McKibben sounds interesting – I’m more interested in the biography of ‘Paul Dirac, “the strangest man” in science’).

There were a few delays on the road due to traffic blocking up the narrow roads in the villages, water buffalo crossing and roadworks but we soon realized that the LP’s estimate of 2 hours was way out. The bus slowed to a snails pace as we climbed into the beautiful karst mountains. I started to worry about making it back by the 6pm cutt-off. We did not want to spend a night out here. In the end it took 3 hours to get to Zhinjin where another problem needed solving. To quote the LP ‘Mini-buses will be clamoring to take you to the caves” umm… nope nada ! We started to think that the cave had collapsed and was closed. We approached a taxi but the cost seemed high – at least he understood where we were going and once again we got lucky. A lady with her son and mother (we assume) got hold of us and stuffed us into the cab she had arranged for herself (She could not speak any English but I guess it was obvious we wanted to go to the caves). Not far down the road she excitedly stopped the cab and got the lot of us running to a local bus – at this point we had no idea what was happening, just going with the flow. An hour of mountainous scenery, steep climbs and traffic jams later we arrived at the caves to find it full of tour buses and cars that MUST have arrived via a different route.

The LP claims that the Zhinjin caves (I need to read more about them sometime and get a GPS point) are reminiscent of Tolkienesque mountains and mines and in this they are, for a change, correct. As part of a Chinese tour group it was a little loud and the lighting was cheesy but the cave made up for it with it’s stunning beauty and enormous size. The Kango caves have nothing on this boy. Massive caverns and mind boggling formations. The windy pathways and step twisting staircases gave the feeling of passing through the Mines of Moria (except for the lighting, electronically amplified Chinese guide and the occasional cell phone conversation – yes China Mobile has the INSIDE of the caves covered !). At the more popular formations you can pay for ‘professional’ photos – we opted out and spent a lot time trying to stabilized our little camera on any accepting platform – hope the pics will look okay. Not being able to understand the guide as she pointed out interesting formations we let pareidolia run wild spotting mushrooms to cave trolls.

The tour lasted around 1.5 hours and cost £14ea. It was amazing and worth the four hours to get there (maybe not the additional four hours to get back though). We followed a similar route back using a mini-bus to get to Zhinjin (the ticket collector tried to charge us £2.10ea but a couple in front of us would not let him get away with ripping us off – we ended up paying the correct 70p ea. The same couple also helped us navigate across town to the long distance bus station – people have, in general, been very kind and helpful.

It was a long day on the buses and our butts were aching by the time we got back to Anshun. Unfortunately we are back on another long bus tomorrow grrr. Both of us are feeling a little tired from long days and sleepless nights (you would think that with all the time I have spent in hotels I would know to ask for a room facing away from busy streets – its been like sleeping in a bus stop the past two nights). We are also in need of a good meal sans consequences – looking forward to Kunming in a few days.

[Pictures: some iPhone photo attempts inside the cave]

– Posted from my iPhone via Wifi