Day 386 - Penny-pinching our way to Dalai Lake

According to the Planet the 'easiest' way to get to Dalai Lake is to hire a taxi from Manzhouli. But being of the budget travel variety a Y150 taxi fare didn't quite fit in with our wallet size. We're normally huge fans of the China Lonely Planet, but we've found the Northern section of the guide in blunt terms to be #*@^!! Most writers give travellers options of easiest routes but also cheapest routes, but in this part of the country the general advice is 'catch a taxi'.

On our way into Manzhouli yesterday we passed by a town called Zha Lai Nuo Er, which is much closer to the lake. So, this morning we walked to the Square (by the Xin Hua Bookstore and KFC) and got on a number 2 bus that cost us Y3, and got us to the middle of Zha Lai Nuo Er in about an hour (after stopping every 100m or so to pick up more passengers!). From here we managed to negotiate a taxi to take us to the lake, wait for a couple of hours and bring us back again. We paid Y70, but after seeing how close it is (probably about 10-15km) we could definitely have got it for cheaper.
As we've been in China for a while we didn't see the need to go into the Lake Park, so our taxi veered off the main road to the right about 100m back from the ticket booth, from where we got free access to the huge lake!

We spent the next few hours wandering along the muddy/rocky banks of the lake, occasionally dipping our feet into the murky, luke-warm waters, and watching the fishermen cast their nets in search of fish and shrimp. Dalai Lake is one of the largest lakes in China, so we only managed to walk around a small portion of it!!
On the way back to our taxi we saw a car stuck in the mud - only to find as we got closer that it was our taxi! Why she had come out onto the muddy ground, we have no idea, but lucky for her there were 6 speedo-clad swimmers nearby to help her out.

After making the 18km trip back to Manzhouli went to our local for lunch and were stoked when the potato dish we ordered came out just like fried crispy potato chips, with chilli of course. We rested in front of CCTV 9 (the English Chinese News Channel) where we heard from Mr Winston Peters about NZ's reaction to North Korea's nuclear reactor destruction - nice to know NZ's thoughts are important enough to be mentioned on Chinese news!!
Just as we were about to head out into the night where the buildings are lit up in a slightly less-tacky way than usual the sky decided that despite 30 degree temperatures and sunny skies during the day it was time to wash the ground. So we ended up having an hour long chat with the girl at our hostel - well, Liv chatted and translated for Adam who occasionally said something other than "uh huh"!

Adlibing it the backpackers way to Lake Dalai.