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Published: August 6th 2007
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Living up the Hobo Lifestyle
Sanya was fun but I couldn’t stay there forever, so after many delays (some of which may or may not have included the following: late night pole-dancing related toe injury, late night injury sustained while trying to talk to a girl on a beach-chair, late night injury loosely related to an attempt at drinking a lit candle that I thought was my drink, and general laziness) Felix and I got on a midday bus out of paradise. By means of introduction, Felix is a young Danish entrepreneur/professional photographer (not really, but we can pretend) that I met via David in Sanya.
To reach the mainland we took an overnight cruise on the luxury liner Anonymous Chinese Pile of Junk to the port city of Beihai; known for it’s sandy beach and lack of Russians. Because we had stayed up all night on the front of the boat with a drunk Chinese man and a bottle of Bai Jiu, our 6am arrival was not greeted in the best of spirits, however, we were still keen to get one more day of beach-bumming under our belts before heading inland. Storing our bags at the “cheap” hotel
Overview
Looking down on the entire waterfall. listed on the internet (no longer cheap as they have attained three star status, thus allowing them to charge more, somehow) for free thanks to some very friendly staff we headed straight to the beach.
Silver beach, Beihai. Well, the name says it all really: it’s a big silver-coloured beach. Compared to Sanya the water wasn’t as clear, the waves not as tall, but the lack of expensive hotels, overpriced restaurants (we got an awesome seafood lunch for practically nothing), and western tourists really made up for it’s shortcomings. Also, the whole beach-front is being beatified in a really pretty way, with lots of grassed areas, gardens, palm-lined boulevards and public spaces. So, to really enjoy the beach we did what most people do on the beach: we slept there like homeless people.
Sleeping on a beach is great I must admit; lying there under a palm tree with the wind blowing across, it was exactly what we needed after the long ferry ride. Plus, as soon as we awoke we could run into the water for a swim, or perhaps drink a freshly opened coconut. Simply put, we were living the tropical island dream vacation for a
day without having to pay a cent. Welcome to hobo central.
I Remember, Back When I Was in ‘nam
Four hours south-west of Nanning (the capital of Guanxi province), smack bang on the border with Vietnam, sits the second largest transnational waterfall in the world, which also happens to be the largest waterfall in Asia. Apparently the falls are 200m wide and over 70m high, cascading downwards in three distinct tiers. Also, a second waterfall lies just 20m away on the Vietnamese side of the border, thus producing what can only be termed “a very large thing to see indeed”.
The Detian waterfall was the subject of a day trip we took out of Nanning and it turned out to be significantly more exciting than expected. To start with, the waterfall is massive, ridiculously so, much bigger than any I’ve ever seen before, and as we walked into the park it just appeared in front of us with a shocking suddenness. There it sat, water falling in all directions, cascading randomly around the three tiers in myriad streams. On the left side is the main fall where the second tier is skipped and masses of water
flush into a steaming cauldron hidden behind other, lesser falls. Thanks to the massive wet season that has been hitting China of late, the falls were in full flight, huge volumes of water, easily measurable in Jumbo-Jet or Olympic-Sized Swimming Pool dimensions, were constantly broiling and boiling around.
On the Chinese side of the river there was a small scale tourist set-up: a scenic road with electric cars, a little used walkway along the river’s edge, several view-points with professional photographers ready to take that identikit photo that every other Chinese tourist has. On the other side of the river was Vietnam, with the usual Vietnamese tourist facilities: a small tent where some kids were selling knock-offs. Additionally, boats plied both sides of the falls, ferrying people out under the spray for the “in your face” experience.
After walking around examining the falls from every conceivable angle, a lot of which the Chinese tourists don’t seem to have conceived yet, Felix and I found ourselves at the top of the falls, standing on some kind of island. The river is so wide and ferocious that the boundary of the falls is somewhat indistinct. Streams of water rush in
Haikou Harbour
Leaving Hainan island. all directions, spurting forth from behind trees, around boulders and from all manner of random locations. To say what was and wasn’t an “island” became something of an impossibility, but there we were, standing in the middle of the falls with water on both sides of us. The Chinese tourist road ran up to its culmination ahead of us at which point a string of trinket stalls began. Following the chain of stalls along, we came to a line: the Chinese stalls stopped at an exactly marked point, and a second string of stalls crossed in front of them, however, the second string of stalls was operated by Vietnamese people.
We stood there, on the border between two huge countries, hawkers trying to sell us their presumably duty-free but rip-off-full wares in three languages. I actually found (although I had know the fact for a long while) that the Vietnamese were much better at selling to westerners; their English is far better when it comes to selling stuff. We stepped across the border, illegally entering Vietnam (six or seven times to be honest), trying to discern the differences between the two countries. Sadly, it showed. The Vietnamese side was
Superfluous Warning
Hmm, I was actually thinking about that... just like I remembered Vietnam: poor, dirty, agrarian. The Chinese side was just the way all Chinese attractions are: a veneer of cleanliness to hide the underlying filth.
Leaving Vietnam we returned to the Chinese tourist road where we found a sign pointing towards a cannon emplacement built after the Sino-French war. Presuming that it would only be a short distance up the hill we started up the trail only to find, 40 minutes later, that the emplacement was at the top of the highest Karst in the region. Being Guanxi province, and near to all the Karsts of Halong Bay, Northern Vietnam and Laos, the peaks were incredibly tall and steep. Ridiculously tall and steep. Unfortunately we didn’t have time to make it all the way to the top, but the views out over the land were unbelievable, a combination of Guilin, Tha Khek, Longsheng and the Mekong.
I’m So Hungry I Could Eat a Dog
We did. Half a kilogram of dog hotpot, or Gou Rou Huo Guo as it is known here in China, was the prescribed dinner for a stay in Nanning. It turns out that it is somewhat difficult to find
Chinese Tourists
Hawaii in China. this particular delicacy nowadays, but find it we did. To get our dogs-dinner (it’s a shame we didn’t have it for breakfast, that would have made a good pun) Felix and I had to take a taxi out to a seedy looking, dark and quiet district far from our hotel. We were apprehensive to know if the driver actually knew where we wanted to go, but eventually we arrived in front of a small restaurant in an area known as the “100 things area”, trust the Chinese language to be self-explanatory.
Rex Pluto Lassie Silver, the dog that we ate (we thought that considering the probably mistreatment the dog had received during its life we had to give it some normal dog experiences, such as a silly name), turned out to be quite delicious. Looking and tasting similar to mutton, the meat was served out pre-cooked but cold. A boiling hot pot of soup and spices along with some vegetables and chili paste was put in front of us; all that was left was to mix it all together and to eat it.
So, I’m sorry if you feel that eating dogs is wrong, I do like dogs
and they are wonderful animals, but they are just so damn tasty.
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Scott
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This update started with so much promise! Pole-dancing, girls on beach chairs, amazing feats of drinking candles! Imagine my distress when I realised that it was 1,500 words on a waterfall. This blog needs more hilarious anicdotes and less sightseeing.