A Night at the Doms

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Wuzhou was a lively, prosperous city with plenty to interest the visitor: parks, a night craft market and a busy street restaurant scene. As we left we passed a sign for a snake farm, and Richard was off, like a rat up a drain pipe. Fortunately, the local council had seen fit to replace the snake farm with a new housing development. However, we did discover a beautiful and large temple complex along the same road. As we were by then loaded up and moving on, we decided not to visit it, and left disappointed at discovering this gem too late. (That it was atop an enornmous flight of steps and a long winding path had nothing to do with it.) We were quietly confident that the day ahead would produce its own harvest of treasures and surprises. And so it did: Our next port of call, De Xing, proved to have temples, pagodas and parks a-plenty. We spent an afternoon in the tranquil atmosphere of the Temple of Confucus, looking at the beautiful buildings, murals and chinese paintings. As we walked back to the hotel, we were swept along in a tide of tracksuit-uniformed school children cycling from school. One enterprising young lad stopped Richard and said "I want you to teach me English" Wae aye, I thought to myself, just as soon as he's learned it himself!

The next day we called in on the Mi Le Bhudda and San Yuan Pagoda, before continuing on our way to Yong Feng. A few kilometers along, a lady on a moped passed me and we exchanged greetings. Not long afterwards, she was waiting at the roadside, where she waved me to a halt and presented me with a bag of buns. A lovely gesture, and just in time for elevenses.

Our ride that day was level, but on a pot-holed road, which proved to be the final straw for my aluminium front pannier rack, which snapped. Richard did a temporary fix which got us to our home for the night, where our host provided materials for a longer-lasting fix. Our room that night was simple, but had everything that we needed, plus a few things that we didn't; namely a healthy population of mosquitos. Fortunately, each bed had a mosquito net and, after a braised duck dinner, we were soon tucked up asleep in our flimsy four-posters. At around midnight we were awakened, and kept awake, by what sounded like intermittent torrential rain on a tin roof. Eventually, we realised that we were situated above an enthusiastic domino game. Every few minutes would be heard an avalanche of clattering, shuffling dominoes; every thump and clunk of the big chunky pieces funnelled up the stairs, resounding off the tiled floor and walls. From time to time a hush would descend as the players considered their moves. A heavy stamp of a foot, or banging down of a domino signalled an impasse, and heralded a new torrent of clattering and rattling. The occassional polite ding-dong of a doorbell announced the arrival of a new player: the roller shutter door would rumble up and a motorbike would be driven into the entrance way, its engine adding to the cacophony. Richard informed me that play ended and players dispersed at 3.30 am, but his purgatory was to continue, for by now I was fast asleep and emitting deep snores which Richard, marooned in his net-shrouded bed, in a sea of mosquitos, was powerless to interrupt. It had been a funny old day. But aren't they all?

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Photos

The First Lesson
Now repeat after me - Howay the Lads