Chaoan temple

While we were at Henry’s farm (see Jieyang farm and tombstones) we went to the temple just down (up?) the road. It’s a very old temple, could probably call it ancient. The pinyin name is gan1lu4si4 (GanLu Temple), and it’s under a big rock on a hill in the middle of Nowhere and you have to climb about 300 steeeep stairs to get there. I actually came here with my mum and dad last October, but as my foot was broken, they went up with my friend and I made friends with the people at the bottom who sell things to sacrifice. I mean things like bottles of cooking oil and paper money! There was an old man there who had been in the navy. He had no teeth and was about 86, but he knew more English than anyone else on the stall.

He wasn’t there on Sunday though, they said he was at a temple near the university. It was nice to show them my healed foot. We came a little motorbike that me and Jess had to jump on while it was moving otherwise we were too heavy and it wouldn’t start. This was probably Jess’ favourite part because she loves motorbikes, but my favourite part was after we reached the actual temple. If you keep walking through, you get to the restaurant and toilet area (note: there are NO toilets with doors either below or at the temple). If you still keep walking through, you get into lots of little paths and really it’s up to you which ones you take. It was late in the afternoon and they were closing up - actually by the time we left they had to unlock the gate for us - so we didn’t get far. But we did find a big rock that looked reasonably climbable and indeed it was, well more or less. We weren’t the ones to see this though because the top of the rock was full of empty cigarette packets. I really want to go back and do some more wandering. It was like the time last year when my brother came to visit and we went to Dansuao resort (still under construction at the time) and climbed their hill, which also has some pleasant rocks at the top.

I have previously declared to myself that this shall be the year that I venture out into the general Chaoshan area, so tips of good places to go/eat at would be appreciated.