Our plan to get up and do a trek in the morning was curtailed as we both overslept and we decided to instead go on one of the organised tours. I'm normally a bit averse to doing these, but being in the mountains means you can only walk to a few places and public transport isn't as frequent or reliable (relatively) and we were seduced by the promise of six different places in an afternoon. Of course this meant we were given a whole 20 minutes in one place, 35 in another and so on, but it was nonetheless enjoyable, though we might of annoyed the others a little, being last back to the minibus on four occasions. The tours were Chinese Buddhist temple, Strawberry Farm, Rose Garden and viewpoint, Tea plantation, butterfly farm and bee farm.
The Chinese temple was only rebuilt in the 70's, but was beautifully decorated with little buddha tiles from floor to ceiling and also boasted a large collection of statues.
The Rose Garden was fairly dull, though it amused me for having as many 'no plucking' signs and cartoon charactr models as roses. It did have a good lookout point however and it as there where I recieved a welcome phone call to say they'd completed my passport in just over a day and it was ready to collect.
The highlight was the tea plantation, both for the scenery with 360 acres of tea plants carpeting the hillsides and the factory itself with the the air full of the freshest tea smells. Even though I'm not an avid tea drinker to everyone's total surprise as an Englishman, I could appreciate this and had a nice cuppa afterwards.
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