Harbin Diary# 4 - Treatment and frustration!

I felt relieved because we’d managed to see a doctor and to get some treatment. The problem in my ear had caused distress and I was worried and couldn’t really enjoy our trip as if I had been ok. Where it had come from, I don’t know.
The doctor asked me if I’d been swimming, but no I had not. I could have got some water in to the ear from the shower, but I can’t imagine that this would cause a fungus infection like this. More likely is it, that I’ve scratched my self in the log with my finger, and that some bacteria on that finger got in there and started growing their little ugly colony. But what ever, we had to go to the Hospital again the next day and we needed to figure out how to get away from Harbin in direction of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture just at the North Korean border.
One of the biggest attractions here is the Changbai Mountains. We kind of wanted to go there, so that was why we wanted to go to the city of Yanji, because from there you could have access to trips in that big fantastic nature reserve, although we didn’t know how and what it really meant going there.
Along the streets in Harbin, hidden in gates and doorways, we had seen young people sitting at desks with some big signs and posters with pictures of fantastic landscapes with mountains, forests and lakes. These were kind of travel agencies, and from the pictures we could understand that they were offering trips to the Changbai Mountains.
In my state of being relieved and content that my ear was going to get better, and the fact that we’d managed the stress of the Hospital, even it was hard because of our complete lack of Mandarin language; we went to one of these small desks hidden under a staircase in a doorway, hoping that we would be able to organize the train tickets ourselves anyway, and not put any more stress on Mr. Ding Yu at the hotel.
Two young women were sitting there occupied with their mobile phones. As we suddenly appeared in front of them, both jumped up of their chairs and stood straight like a bow, hiding the phones behind their backs.
“Hallo, we would pretty much like to go to Yanji and the Changbai Mountains, could you help us?”
Their professional smile faded as quick as it appeared. They looked at each other, then at us while they shook their heads simultaneously.
Then one of them took a brochure from the desk and handed it over.
Everything was written in Chinese.
The other managed to get; “no English” over her lips.
We could only reply; “no Putonghua!”
This was going to be difficult, and after some fractions of sentences, we could understand that they couldn’t organize any train tickets, but we could join a three days trip to the mountains and back again to Harbin, which meant one day in a bus, one day in the mountains and one days bus ride back. That was not what we wanted to do, so we said; “che che” and “bye bye” and went away. I could see the relief in their faces as they both realized that they got rid of us, and they could again concentrate on their phones.