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Published: August 30th 2009
Traditional Dancers
'Maiju' dancers doing their thing. The outfits were amazing. They made me come on stage for one part and dance around, very embarrassing.Greetings Comrades!
The past week was one of the better of my life. I ventured out to an isolated ancient Chinese city deep in the mountains of Hunan called Fenghuang. The journey was epic. Short of writing a novel I really can't recite all the stories and experiences I encountered along the way. Hopefully a few of my pictures can capture your imagination better than this babble.
The adventure began last Monday morning. My alarm laughing loudly at my daily morning rage. I showered quickly and fumbled around in the dark shoving what clean clothes I had into my backpack. Late as always I flew down the five flights of stairs and caught a taxi to the bus station where I was meeting Tyler my friend and traveling partner. He was late too and we missed our first bus to Guangzhou but caught the second. We were flying by the seat of our pants for this trip. No real plans, we were just going.
An hour and half bus ride and few subway stops later we arrived at the Guangzhou train station. An unnerving mass of humanity stirred restlessly in the twilight. The train station is massive but
Cave
I just like this picture. the horde of people even greater. Thousands of people queue outside in the old parking lot, the station unable to accommodate their numbers. Over 4 million people use this train station every day.
After waiting ages in line for a ticket we discover the train is sold out of seats... However a train in China is NEVER sold out, it simply means you will have to stand. Normally not a big deal, but this is a SEVENTEEN HOUR train ride. Well being stupid young men we said whatever and bought standing only tickets for our 17 hour ride.
We didn't last three hours. Wandering around aimlessly and being followed by Chinese children curious about me, the big white oddity, got old fast and we needed a break. Luckily we managed to snag prized seats in the dining car. Most people without seats end up crashing in the space between the train cars or tucked into strange dirty little nooks never meant to hold anything but air. Hanging out in the dining car meant we only had to buy some tea or food every few hours to keep our seats. NO PROBLEM.
9 or so hours later we
The boat ride
This was the view from the boat as we headed out to see the caves arrived in ChangSha, the capital of Hunan Province. At Changsha we de-boarded thinking if we caught a different train we could get a hard sleeper. Dumb luck was with us and we managed to get two hard sleepers to Jishou, a city very near Fenghuang. We explored around Changsha and almost managed to miss our train later that night. We ended up having to run through the station and down the platform to catch the train. We barely made it aboard.
The ride into the mountains was really REALLY cool. The train was constantly in and out of long tunnels that carved through the mountains. It seemed the closer we got to Jishou the more time we spent in tunnels and less in the open. The sensation of being buried in complete darkness and then streaking out into the morning sunshine ontop of a mountain was AWESOME. Peaking through the window near my tiny Chinese sized bunk I could only occasionally catch glimpses of gorgeous mountain vistas before roaring back into the black. I felt like we were passing through the wardrobe into Narnia.
We arrive. Following a short and terrifying taxi ride in the mountains we get
Little girl
Little girl selling her wishing flowers. I bought them all. to the gates of the old city. Fenghuang is captivating. You just want to stare at it like you are looking at an old beautiful picture, but there we were. We got rooms at a place Tyler had stayed before right along the river. We had a balcony with a great view for just 250 kwai (35 bucks) for 3 nights. The place recently has started to attract a lot of tourists which can be annoying but its still beautiful and during the early morning very serene.
While in Fenghuang we went hiking in the mountains, ate with locals in tiny village hut, explored caves, swam in the river, saw traditional dancing and singing, drank the famous local wine, ate WAY too much spicy food, visited museums, shopped, ect ect.. I'll tell a quick couple of stories that hopefully can capture some feeling of the trip.
The 'Miaju' people of FengHuang have their own unique culture completely apart from much of the PRC. They speak a unique language that is incomprehensible to anyone who only speaks only Mandarin. Well one of our cute girl 'Miaju' guides taught us some of the language and traditional customs of the area.
little waterfall
on the river. On the boat. Apparently when a boy is interested in a girl he will give a little tug on the waistband of the girl’s skirt. The girl can choose to ignore the boy or respond to show that she is interested in the boy. The way a girl shows she is interested in dating the boy is by STOMPING on his FOOT. Hysterical! Well I thought this was just great so I immediately pulled on the girls skirt and she stomped on my foot!! I think I'm in love. The rest of the day involved tugging on skirts and hoping girls would step on my feet. It was absolutely hilarious.
We also went to go explore some caves in the area. To get to the caves you have to take a 25 minute boat ride along the river. Our car had arrived early at the "dock" and we had to kill time before the other groups in our travel party arrived. The day was miserably hot and the water looked oh so painfully inviting. I couldn't resist. Against the advice of our guide "the water is very deep!" I stripped down to my skivvies and jumped in. The water was great and
Train food
totally sucked, but we had to buy it to keep our seats I swam around with some local children who had gotten bored of washing their clothes in the river. I'm pretty sure the Chinese tourists all thought I was absolutely bonkers. The other groups arrived while I was playing around so I had to reboard the ship and introduce myself to everyone while dressing myself in soaking wet underwear. I didn't care the water was great, I think they were crazy for not joining me. I'm really not helping the strange westerner stereotype huh.
One last story. All the food in Hunan is spicy. EVERYTHING. Red peppers are everywhere drying out in the streets and on rooftops. Crushed red pepper goes into every single dish. All I could eat was covered in a dangerous red haze. I normally love spicy food but after a third straight morning of super hot spicy noodles for breakfast I wasn't doing too great. That morning however we had plans to visit a mountain village and spend some time in thin air with the REAL locals. No time to waste, I had to go. The entire trek up the mountain I was dying. Sweating bullets in scorching heat with grueling humidity not sure if I
Spicy food
meal we ate in ChangSha while trying to miss our train ride was about to throw up or poop my pants. Finally I reach the top where the little village rests. Still sweating uncontrollably and looking like I could die at any moment the mountain people start singing us a song. The song was very lovely and nice although my focus truthfully was elsewhere. The song ended and they looked me as if waiting for something (my death?). They said some words to me and Tyler kindly translated... before they would let me into their village I had to sing a song for them in return. Oh... My... God... My mind was completely blank, what could I possibly sing for them. The song needed to be about 40 seconds tops or I was going to lose it. Immediately as if inspired from heaven I start belting out twinkle twinkle little star. I sang as loud and proud as my sweat covered eyes and straining body could manage. When I finished they looked at me, smiled awkwardly, and gave some light applause. I had passed thank God. We entered the village and I found the first bathroom I could. Life was good again.
The entire trip was just great. I saw amazing
peppers
more peppers sights and met many new interesting people along the way. You should really check out the pictures they say more than I ever could. There should be a video too, if you can't see it then hasnt finished uploading yet, check back later. Sorry about the HUGE number of pics I just couldn't decide. Next week I am planning a short trip to Macau before school really goes full tilt. Macau is supposed to be the Las Vegas of South East Asia.
Have a wonderful week everyone, Zai Jian!
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kkoffel
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phoenix city
We continue to enjoy your post and the photos are of a quality I wasn't expecting!! Hopefully your blog will help you to hold onto all these memories!! Good luck with you new classes....Dad