Tibetan impressions, holy hiccup and toilet seat hill

Tibetan impressions:

Under a deep blue sky (amazing) we drove out of Chengde into the hilly mountains around. Our aim: 'Xiao Potala' (the Little Potala) and the monastery Puning Si. Both of them are part of the so-called eight outer monasteries. In fact there are only four of five monasteries, maybe they chose to call it eight monasteries because eight is a lucky number in China, but this is only speculation. Interestingly, the monasteries were built because of politic / diplomatic rather than religious reasons. Some buildings are such only to be contemplated from the outside and inside there's nothing at all.

Our impression: Amazing! The Xiao Potala is an exact copy of the real Potala in Tibet. It is located on a beautiful green hill, fresh air... we just felt like in Tibet except that we had no signs of altitude sickness. Xiao Potala is an old copy of the potala built back in 1767 because the Manchu kings wanted to stay friends with the Mongols (at that time fervent Tibetan buddhists, i.e. lamaists).

The highlight of Puning Si is the tall wooden Avalokiteshvara (sanskrit name) / Guanyin (Chinese name) / Goddess of Mercy statue (the highest of its kind in the world). The Goddess has 42 arms with each of them holding something in its hands.

No wonder Agnes (a co-traveller) got a holy hiccup (German: Schluckauf) thrice that day -probably to express her favorable impression. With 35 degree sun from a blue blue sky burning down on us a spontaneous water fight was a welcome refreshment.

Last but not least on that magnificent day we climbed on a hill. Officially it's called club (German: Keule - Haegar laesst gruessen!) rock (Bangchui Feng) or hammer rock, but looking at it from far away it resembled more a huge seat - most probably a toilet seat and near the rock it indeed felt like just Haegar the Viking was missing. We just called it 'toilet seat rock' following our first idea. Needless to mention that the view down the mountain into the valleys and on the other mountains was fantastic on that bright and sunny day.

Thanks to Agnes & Joerg & the Manchu kings for this excellent trip!