Advertisement
Published: November 22nd 2007
(N) It struck me as ironic one morning, while I was lying down in the bunk reading my book "The Old Patagonian Express" - in which Paul Theroux was describing his train journey from Boston USA down to Chile's Patagonia - that southern China was passing me by outside the compartment window above my head, like a big filmstrip. So I put down my book and pulled back the curtain. It was 10a.m. after all, and the Chinese passengers had been up for hours. There were fields visible in every direction, with large hills marking the boundaries of what you could see, covered in green trees. Some of the terrain was wild overgrown shrubs but much of it consisted of neatly arranged crops, with irrigation ditches and small swimming-pool-sized bodies of water. Here and there, figures were bent over double, attending to them, sometimes wearing the pale stereotypical conical hats. As we approached some of the train stations, signs of urbanised life came into view: concrete construction projects, some of which were giant, apartments and roads. Hawkers wandered along the smaller roadsides carrying a thick bamboo pole across their shoulders, from which dangled a large basket of wares on each side.
View from the train window
On the way from Shanghai to GuilinWe were travelling "hard sleeper" (second class) as we had done in Russia, but whereas in Russia it meant just
4 bunks in a closed cabin, in China it was
6 bunks (three on each side) in an open cabin. I wandered down the train, through several other carriages of 2nd class, where many occupants were already eating the ubiquitous and practical pot-noodle-type snack, made more interesting with the addition of typical Chinese accompaniments: boiled egg, duck neck, chicken foot. There was one 1st class carriage (4 bunks/cabin), at the end of which was a western-style toilet (with a pine seat! All other toilets were cubicle-sized rooms where there was a hole and pipe straight onto the track. Toilets are locked 10 mins before and after a station for this very reason). I opened a door with the word "Kitchen" written in English. I thought it must be a self-catering area for those lucky blighters in 1st class, so I opened it, but it was really a kitchen where meals for the buffet car were being prepared. I made my excuses and left. The buffet car itself was empty, save for 6 uniformed employees of China Railways, smoking and
sharing a joke.
The same Paul Theroux also wrote something along the lines of how good it is to travel large distances from north to south, seeing and feeling the seasons change the weather. I was reminded of this as we arrived at
Guilin train station in the south of China and felt the warm air, a complete contrast to the autumnal Siberia we had been in the previous month.
We were to stay 2 days in
Yangshuo, in Guangxi province, famous for its 20,000 limestone karsts: steep, tree-covered mounds rising from the ground to heights of between 100 and 300m. I am informed that these karsts date back 190 million years, to when the area was an ocean, and they were created by upward movements in the earth's crust. In any case, Yangshuo today is a small town revolving around gringos: their lodging, their feeding and watering, and their outdoor activities. Great to have some food like at home (that'll be Shepherd's Pie for me) instead of Chinese everyday, but it was good not to spend too much time in the town itself. (By the way, our hotel in Yangshuo was called Fawlty Towers - honestly! And
no
Hanging Gardens of Babylon here, either).
I had read about cormorant fishing, a traditional Chinese way of catching fish with a bird at night, and was glad that we could go and watch it taking place. Sounds dull, but isn't. Our small group climbed into a low boat and chugged down the Li River in darkness, and it was not long before we had caught up with an old man who was - for want of a better description - punting. His craft was made up of 5 long and wide bamboo poles, tethered together, in the middle of which was a large bamboo basket for the caught fish. The old man had a team of about 8 cormorants working for him. They had string tied around their necks and their wings were strapped to avoid them flying away. They paddled alongside the man's boat, then ducked gracefully and disappeared under the water. Most of the time, they emerged with small fishes in their beaks which they managed to swallow despite the neck ligature. However, before the end of our visit, one of the birds managed to catch a large, 8-inch fish. The old man twirled his boat
around, plucked the bird out of the water and purposefully massaged its neck. The big fish flopped out into the basket.
In honesty, I suspect the old dude makes more money from allowing boats carrying a few tourists to follow him for half an hour than he does from the fishing - his haul was hardly impressive for the time spent. As if to confirm this, our boat and the man's punt landed on a small island shortly after, where we could get off and meet the fisherman - before I knew it, he had got me wearing his hat, with a big cormorant on one arm! Our trip was a fascinating insight into a very traditional way of life, even if our presence had not exactly been subtle.
Our guide recommended us an alternative medicine clinic on our orientation walk in Yangshuo, and one evening Paula and I decided to have some treatment (about time you might say!). Whereas P. had a foot massage, I opted for 'hot cupping', I hadn't heard of it before but it sounded good: it promised to promote my
Qi ("Chi", meaning energy). I took off my t-shirt and lay on my
On the Li River, near Yangshuo
(Photo courtesy of fellow traveller Yaki) front, the doctor held a large flame under a small-ish bamboo cup and then put it straight on my back, where a mini-vacuum was created and it stayed in place. She did the same thing another 29 times and within 2 minutes I looked like a hedgehog. I lay still for 10 mins till she came back and removed them. It felt a little like sunburn when the suction was released, but then no pain. Over the next few days, the base of my back, which had been a little sore, did feel better. I was horrified to see a photo of my back straight after the cups were removed, however, as each of the 30 cups had left a large red circle mark, 2 inches in diameter, as if I had contracted some foul tropical disease. It was not at all painful, but the marks took a full week to disappear.
We spent one day kayaking on the
Li River, which was a real highlight. This river has inspired centuries of Chinese art and poetry, as it peacefully winds its way through the countryside, past more huge limestone karsts. We began our paddling in the small town of
A well-deserved thirst-slaker, Li River
(Photo courtesy of fellow traveller Yaki) Fuli, where a barge/water taxi was ferrying people to points nearby, complete with all their fruit, veg and small animals. We were fortunate with the weather as it was a beautiful day, and there was very little traffic on the river; within 10 minutes of leaving Fuli it was almost silent. The riverbanks were covered in lush vegetation and the peaks rose dramatically in the medium distance. We past floating homes, water buffalo up to their necks, bathing and snorting peacefully in the heat, fishermen and their small fish farms (6 floating plastic oil barrels strapped together, nets underneath and a small tent-shaped canopy on top, for one person to sleep under and guard the fish). Many dragonflies and butterflies buzzed around, and we particularly enjoyed it when there was a brief increase in the flow of the current, and we didn't have to paddle to move along. We also floated on parts of the river that were only a few inches deep and thought that we might get grounded, but thankfully that didn't happen 😊
A lunchtime beer stop on a small floating restaurant was also called for. Later, as pleasant as the day had been, 3 hours
paddling was enough: it was pretty sweaty and the air was humid, I sported a blister on each hand and the smell of duck poo - in which I had earlier inadvertently put our bag - was becoming intrusive. We took a bus back to Yangshuo from a village at a lower point in the river, and noticed a couple of unusual things in the village as we walked through it: several portraits of Mao still hung in houses; over some doorways there were a pair of scissors and a mirror - both are said to ward off nefarious spirits - and most of the thresholds were a foot off the ground and had to be stepped over to enter the house; this prevents access by the evil spooks, who apparently can't bend at the knees!
Unfortunately I don't have many photos from the day as we did not want to take our cameras, but there are some great pro pictures at
Fotosearch's images of the Li River The following day was spent on an organised cycle ride. Before describing the day, it is important to write that cyclists are firmly at the bottom of the food chain on China's roads: if a
vehicle comes to a t-junction and a cyclist is approaching, the vehicle will pull out and the cyclist should give way. Cyclists are always honked at and almost brushed by overtaking mopeds and lorries. We were therefore glad that the road section of our trip was short, and soon we were in the fields, peddling along rice paddies and rocky tracks. One comical moment was when a moped overtook us, with a basket of ducks all quacking loudly at its rear. At a nearby lake, we saw a gaggle of about 50 ducklings waddling around in a big group, in a scene straight out of Beatrix Potter. We got many interesting insights into life in rural China: we saw the end of the rice harvest, one of the harvesters knew our guide and we were able to have a go at cutting the rice stalks with the scythe. The stalks are then arranged in groups resembling small wigwams to dry in the sun (see photos), to be used as animal feed later in the year. Opposite the rice harvesters was a woman up to her knees in a pond, panning for water snails, and not too far from her were
Rice processing, Yangshuo
This woman's machine is cutting off the rice stalks from the end of the stems. another couple of water buffaloes doing their usual bathe-and-snort routine. Also on our journey we saw a tuber like potato called
taro being dug up, our guide took a few of them away and they were fried up for our lunch, tasting as good as chips. At later points we would also see peanuts, sugar cane, cotton wool, oranges and aubergines growing, and called in to a local man's house where he had a mini-distillery churning out rice wine, the speciality firewater of the region.
In the middle of our ride, we had to cycle on another road and dodge traffic again, but it was plenty wide enough. On each side, people were working in the fields with their tools as they had done in the centuries before their land had been bisected by tarmac. This road took us to
Moon Hill, a 900-step hillock that gave us some good views over the countryside, and we also watched a climber scaling its wall; see the photo for some idea of the huge scale. We later visited a small place where we saw how the same rice stalks that had been cut in front of us are processed: the 2'
Moon Hill, Yangshuo
To get an idea of scale, see the climber towards the top right.
stalks are hand fed into a pedal-powered machine which chops off the rice husks at the end of the stalks, into a collecting barrel. Those husks are then spread out on the ground to dry in the sun. We were careful not to step on them, but soon saw children running over them and hens nibbling at the edges! These dried grains are then taken to a place where the outer husks are whittled away, leaving the white grains that we all buy from Mr Tesco and co.
It was fantastic to cycle in the late afternoon in the warm heat of the setting sun between the huge peaks, and finish with a dip in the river - very refreshing!
Whilst out in the countryside, we had a
Chinese half-day cookery school class. Set in a converted barn, our lesson was in a well-equipped kitchen with 10 woks hooked up to central gas canisters, and big plates of fresh veg ready to be cooked. First course was steamed pork & mushroom dumpling-type snacks, followed by aubergines in oyster sauce, beer fish (made with half a pint of lager!), chicken with cashew nuts, green veg & garlic - all of
which we ate later in their sunny garden.
Link to Yangshuo Cookery School The great thing about the class was that we also had the opportunity to visit the market from where most of our ingredients had come from. There seemed to be hundreds of types of fruit, veg and berries, some we knew, most not, although we had tried some of them recently: lotus root, and fresh bean sprout which had quite literally just sprouted from the bean. The animal sections of the market were a world away from British food markets: the fish were swimming in small tanks to be killed on order (I saw a 12" catfish have its head chopped off, blood & insides spilling everywhere), nearby were toads (4 to a small string bag), turtles and eels (all live), lots of hens were clucking in cages (the Chinese much prefer to select their animal, carry it home live and slaughter just before cooking it - they don't trust the prepared equivalent; they also don't have ovens and so can only wok-cook it, or, if on occasion they want it roasted, will buy a pre-cooked one). Near to the hens were pigeons and rabbits, all alive. Worst of all,
several roasted dogs hung from hooks, brown and crispy.
That evening, Paula and I took a walk in the nearby fields as the sun set, where people were still harvesting rice with their scythes. One man was watering his crops with a large watering can on each side of them, balanced on a single bamboo pole across his shoulders, and he did not mind his picture being taken. We came across more water buffalo, munching or having a bathe, all with thin rope through their nostrils, which is how they are controlled. Elsewhere, hens and chicks skulked among drying out stalks.
The journey to
Long Ji (Tran. "Dragon Backbone") rice terraces, where we would spend the next 2 days, was circuitous and largely uneventful. A bus from the
Outside Inn - the little guesthouse in the countryside where we had spent 2 comfortable nights in the easy-chairs (slurping milkshakes & local coffee when not cycling, walking, swimming, learning to cook or walking along the narrow rice paddy paths, a place which in fact had been recommended by my
Wanderlust travel magazine) - took us back to Guilin, from where it was another 2-hour bus ride deeper into the
countryside, from where we squashed into a final small local bus which took us to
Dazai. The road for this last part was mostly along a bumpy track, winding through the hills. We came to a bend where our progress was halted by a jeep and a JCB, with a dozen workers sitting on the side of the track. When they saw our bus pull up and stop, they grinned and looked a little sheepish but didn't move until they felt like it, a little later, and went back to levelling the stones that would eventually become a new road. Finally, the jeep and JCB moved to the side and we could continue on our way. On arrival at a small village, we had a 30 min walk uphill to the guesthouse where we were staying. It was late afternoon, humid, the air smelled of burning leaves and tiny pieces of black ash floated around us as it fell from a controlled fire higher up. We passed several people on their way down, the usual bamboo pole across their shoulders and a basket of veg (or similar) dangling from each side.
The local people in Dazai are
Yao, one
Entrance ticket to the rice paddy area
It shows the women and their long hair. These days, they only like to get it out, so to speak, in return for money.
of China's many ethnic minorities. Even if we hadn't been told so, there was a definite roundness and softness of face that made the womenfolk look especially friendly. They allow their hair to grow very long, almost to their knees, which they wear up on their head, and it looks like a turban. Their clothes, typically a bright pink top and black shirt, reminded us of women in various South American places we had seen earlier in the year. This custom of maintaining local dress is under threat, according to our local guide Sally. The influence of television (even in villages of just c.200 people there were several satellite dishes!) and the small groups of tourists passing through had the combined effect of introducing new fashions, and some younger people are now wearing more 'casual' clothes.
Our first encounter with a Yao woman was on the local bus; she had been carrying a big basket of wet-looking blocks of tofu to sell. It was odd to see her in her traditional clothes talking on a mobile telephone, but apparently you can get reception everywhere in China, which is more than can be said for the UK! There were another
half-dozen Yao waiting where our bus dropped us off, smiling and wanting to carry our day-packs in a basket on their backs to our guesthouse, and they didn't push it when we politely declined.
The following morning, we left to head into the rice paddies. These are very clever feats of agricultural ingenuity, and have been around for about 500 years - around the same time the Incas were doing their thing in Peru and environs. Up and down we walked for about 4 hours. Although the season is officially winter, it was sunny and warm, and not a little humid. The forests stretched out at the top of the hills, above which was a big blue sky. However, in the air above the undulating and stacked rice terraces, which descended row upon row into the valley, there was a distinct white haze. The rice harvest had only just taken place and although the upper teraces were partly soaked by the irrigation (sometimes along semi-circular bamboo trunks serving as pipes), the lower terraces were dry. The narrow paths we used were very rocky, with metre-drops just to the side, so it was not possible to walk and take in
the scenery at the same time, lest an ill-placed foot should lead one to take a tumble.
We passed several tombstones on our walk, some right by the path, others in random places on the hillside. According to Sally, these locations would have been selected by a feng shui expert. Quite ornate, they were topped by a small carved animal with text on the front.
At one village we saw tobacco leaves drying (to be smoked by the villagers themselves, not for sale) and also sweet potato leaves drying which would be used for pig food.
There were 2 main viewpoints on the walk, where the terraces were arranged in such a way that they suggested certain patterns; the first was called "The Moon and Seven Stars" and the second "9 Dragons and 5 Tigers". At the time of our visit, the terraces were not at their best, as mentioned, because the rice harvest has already taken place and the fields were quite yellow/brown. However, try as I might, I didn't really make out more than the moon, a couple of stars, and the back of a dragon back or two. I think the rice wine may
Rice terraces, Ping An
Paula has captured them in their best light for this time of year. have had some hallucinatory effect on the person who first named them.
At one point, I was the first walker in the group and saw my first snake in the wild, about 2' long. It rustled when I first approached, which is what caught my attention, stayed still for a while, then slithered off, probably to bother a fieldmouse or two.
Ping An, the village at the end of the trek, was not as expected. Larger than the communities that we had passed through, it had the same large wooden dwellings (each contains one family, all the space is used up across a couple of generations. The one-child policy does not apply in the countryside, they get married and share the same house), but also exact replicas of them to serve as guesthouses. I was expecting somewhere fairly remote, but Ping An is developing at some pace. There is a lot of building work taking place, and concrete is starting to make an appearance, looking ugly against the traditional wood. Some villagers maintain the work that their families have always done, rearing poultry and swine, or ferrying baskets up and down rocky paths, or guiding laden horses to
some unseen place, but many others were involved in the growing tourism business, building more new lodgings and cafes, several of which are finished and offer outside specialities such as foot massage & pizza. Old women have also been drafted in, knitting large-size versions of local shoes for sale.
Our tour company, Intrepid, has been keen to support the local entrepreneurs and not those from further afield who have spotted the tourist potential. Nevertheless, shortly after our arrival at our hotel, a group of huffing middle-aged Dutch tourists also showed up, several of whom had chartered locals to heave their suitcases up the hill; we also saw other tourists arriving in sedan chairs!! The second viewpoint, "The Moon and Seven Stars" which I mentioned earlier, was very near Ping An village and epitomised the tourist circus that the place was beginning to become. On our uphill walk, plenty of knick-knack stalls lined the route, as well as opportunities to have your photo taken in 'traditional costume', and day trippers sported chinos and sensible shoes. At the viewpoint itself, it was impossible not to be impressed with the scale and design of the terraces, but the current autumn season displayed
them as parched and brown, instead of the lush green spectacle that they are in summer just before the harvest.
That night, we were treated to a 'cultural show' by some local women from the village, another ethnic minority called
Zhuang, who wear embroidered white shirts, and headgear resembling teatowels, where they sang and performed traditional dances. Sounds like it could be cringeworthy but it was really good humoured, and we all enjoyed it. They also performed their version of pole dancing - much more innocent than it sounds, and a friend from the tour does have a video of Paula doing it - I'm trying to get a copy to upload to the blog - watch this space!
The bus ride back from the terraces to Guilin before our overnight train to Hong Kong reminded me of South America: all passengers squashed together on small seats, live animals made their presence known (this time a quacking duck or two in a sack), and a driver whose only precaution on blind-bend overtaking was to loudly honk his horn.
Our food experiences in the last 24 hours really summed up how they had been in China over the
Snake on the menu
(no, we didn't...!) last month: a breakfast where the juice came a while after the food had been finished (and yoghurt & fruit forgotten!), a delicious stir-fried lunch banquet, and dinner in a restaurant with a wonderful aubergine dish and a pork one that smelled so bad even the Chinese on the next table didn't eat it after having initially accepted it from us! And rice at the
end of the meal; the Chinese think it is bad form to bring it out earlier, like you are trying to fill up your guests with cheap carbohydrate.
The time had come to leave China. I was surprised by how much I had liked it, and interested to see how much had seemingly been achieved in a relatively short period, no doubt helped by having single-party political consensus. At times, it felt as if the pace was actually
too quick for the people, for example they had huge brand spanking new buildings (eg train stations) but treated them as if they were a shed, leaving litter everywhere and spitting on the shiny surfaces. I finally remembered to use my Chinese phrase at the railway station:
Picchu bing an - a cold beer please! Had
to chug it before picking up the luggage and boarding the 21h48 to Shenzen, from where we would walk across the border and into Hong Kong, all being well.
The train into HK was cleaner than the ones we had taken internally in China - we had our own reading lights for a start, which meant that we did not have to go to sleep at 10pm! Some of the doors were also touch-activated. We emerged around 11h00 on Sunday morning into another warm environment, hiking along the station to a Customs point where our passports were stamped (180 days for Brits, 90 days for other EU!), then we took the subway to out hostel, which was actually smart enough to be a hotel.
Initial notes of interest:
* they drive on the left!
* there are fines for spitting in public! The opposite to China.
* there are so many shops, restaurants and businesses on every floor of the tall buildings, squeezed into such a small space, that they all have huge signs strapped to the side of the buildings, starting from the top and ending just above (or, sometimes, at) the level of my forehead.
* there are loads of tailors wanting to make me a suit in 24 hours.
* the Chinese characters used in HK's Cantonese language are more complicated than the recently-simplified Manadarin Chinese of the mainland (according to the missus)
I wish I had been in HK before the handover, to see how the Brits managed a small area in Asia, but I knew I was going to enjoy this week immensely.
*****
Advertisement
Tot: 0.3s; Tpl: 0.017s; cc: 14; qc: 75; dbt: 0.1618s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.4mb
