Xingping

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Hello!

Due to a pretty substantial blunder by me, today is our last day in China. Mixed emotions, sad to leave some people we love, but not totally sad about leaving China. It's beautiful and interesting and all, but it's just so hard because I'm useless at learning Mandarin and so it a bit limiting in what you can actually do by yourself. I had thought we had a full day left and we were going to travel home from Yangshuo tomorrow night and then have almost a full day in Shenzhen before we flew home, but our flights are actually tomorrow night. Luckily I realised that last night while we were making plans because originally our tickets out of here weren't going to get back to Shenzhen until a few minutes before our flight starts checkin, and we still needed to make it all the way across the city, pack up everything in our apartment, and then come back across the city again to get to the airport. Just wasn't possible, so we booked some new train tickets that go out from Guilin tomorrow morning at 11:00 and that will get us home by 3:00 I think and then we've got a few hours to burn before we jump on the plane. Much more civilised. And it's not the end of the world, the old tickets we got can get refunded to us and it means the issue with Liam's tickets isn't an issue anymore, so silver linings and all that, but bottom line, I'm an idiot who can't read itineraries...

Anyway, so today! Our driver took us to a few places to have a look around, they're a few villages that are locally famous and parts of them are ancient. First was Fuli, where they are famous for painting fans and selling them. They're quite nice and I guess because it's not a super touristy place, most of the stores are actually selling fans that have been made in the same store - and they tell you if they're rip-offs too! We got a few and had a wander around, saw the river and checked out some of the older buildings. It looks a bit like a ghost town sometimes, but there were people in a few places, I have a feeling they don't spend much time indoors because the houses are very, very old and very, very dark inside, and I'm sure there's a lot they need to get done.

It's a bit weird walking down the streets because the houses down each of the alleyways you walk down are really interesting to look at, but it's easy to forget that it's not really a tourist park, you're walking down the street people live in, and when you're peering in through the doors and windows, you're actually looking into somebody's home. I had to catch myself a few times, because it's so old you sort of get the impression you're walking through an historical village or a recreation. Liam was halfway through a door taking photos of some people at one stage!

From there we went on to another town called XingPing, originally to get some food, but the first place we went was a produce market and the first stall we saw had a slaughtered and eviscerated dog being butchered - head still attached and teeth bared in the most menacing way a non-menacing thing could possibly manage. All of a sudden none of us were super hungry anymore. It was strangely confronting actually, I don't have a problem with people eating whatever, and I know that that's a thing in this area anyway, but seeing it laid out like that was more than I had expected, maybe just because it was the first thing I saw? Anyway, it's a good appetite suppressant. The rest of the market was pretty good, a bunch of produce laid out on tables and a few tables of packaged snacks, some of them looked a bit too scary but I bought a few of the less customs-angering samples to give to a few people who requested them. Outside there were some butchers with their cuts out on display and a few other vegetables and fruits. I like these places, before we had the kids they really appealed to me, I liked being able to get a whole meal organised together in one place from people who had at least a vague connection to the food they are selling. I think it's more a romantic appeal than anything, and I'm still a bit of a chicken with getting any food from these places because I don't think my cowardly stomach would be able to handle it.

XingPing is also important because part of the geography is featured on the 20RMB note. Our driver took us to the place and there's a raft trip you can take that takes you through the area. Another one of those little Chinese safety contradictions unfortunately, they'll only let kids who are 6 year old and over to go on the raft, so we couldn't go on with Ivy. It sort of worked out neatly because they also only can fit 4 people on the raft at the one time, so I sat it out and Sue, Liam and the other guys went on the raft. It had just started raining unfortunately, so the visibility wasn't great, but they said it was was a good experience. At the end, Liam got to dress up in a Chinese straw hat and had a couple of cormorants on a stick on his shoulders and pretend he was a cormorant fisherman for a little bit. He said the birds were heavy though, so I don't think he's going to pursue a future in cormorant fishing. They got some nice shots of the mountains too. I could see the mountains on the note from the banks of the river anyway, and I'm not super crushed that I didn't get to go this time, I'm a bit disappointed I missed Liam with the birds though.

Not a great amount happened after that. We left one of our friends at the train station because they had to work back in Shenzhen tomorrow morning, so we said our farewells, and organised for our new train tickets that will get us home tomorrow morning, and then took the long drive back home. Because we had stopped at so many places on the way out there I hadn't realised how far we had travelled, but it took over an hour to get home, partly because it was raining and the roads here are really dark - I wasn't complaining that the driver was taking it easy.

So this is where the blog ends, tomorrow will just be a few hours on a train, then packing up and racing to the airport, so I don't think I'll bore you with the details. If you do ever make it to China, try and get out to places like this - the cities are interesting, but in the end they're just cities, the attractions in them are basically the same as in every other city, just a bit harder to get to and a bit harder to understand. Places like Yangshuo where we are now, and also Datong and Pingyao from our last trip are the real gems, and even though they're difficult to get to sometimes and the language gap can be a bit difficult to overcome, it's worth the effort to see how impressive and stunning those places can be.

So yeah, that's it. See most of you in a couple of days! Thanks for reading. If you didn't you're dead to me ;-)

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Photos

Kids in Fuli
Not fighting!!!

Fuli Street
Apparently sponsored by Lexus!

Yangshuo Train Station
This is the view when you get off the train as you first arrive. This place is mental.