Day 21 - Sunday July 12, 2009: Sunrise

Woke up at 3:30am.  7-11 breakfast and at the train station by 4:10am.  Our ticket was for 4:20, but the train didn't show until 4:30.  Of course the sun started coming up before we got off the 30 minute train ride.  Once we got there we sprinted up to the lookout point.  We were 3000m up, so it was exhausting.  Sunrise was beautiful.  Clouds, Mountains, Trees.

Headed back down at 6 am and had to kill time before 11 when we had to check out of the hotel and wait for our arranged van at 12.  There is NOTHING to do in the town of Alli San.  We went to our breakfast buffet and had eggs and toast.  Looked at a few lame shops.  Then CKE and I went back to the hotel to shower and relax for a bit.  The van picked us up at 11:40 and we headed down the mountain.  OMG, family, it was like the road to Hana all over again; the rad was so windy I was laying as flat as I could and had my eyes shut the whole time thinking how am I going to tell a driver who only speaks chinese that he needs to pull over NOW or I am going to hurl in his car!  I made it to our first stop of the most crowded village I have ever seen, we were literally walking shoulder to shoulder.  I had to use the bathroom so badly I had to use a squatter for the first time...yuck!  Couldn't get out of there fast enough.

Back in the van, our next stop was supposed to be a lake when we turned up at a bug museum - we had specifically chosen the lake to avoid the bugs.

Back in the van we finally made it back to the train station.  Had a quick McDonalds dinner and took another 3+ hour train ride back to Hukou.  CKE and I read most of the time.  We were all ready to be 'home' again.  We tried our best to stay positive about the weekend because we were out doing something, but overall it sucked big time.  "We will never do it again and it was kind of fun to ride the small train" -CKE