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Published: February 1st 2006
Despite scare stories on the blogs and chat boards we investigated, our journey into mainland China from Hong Kong was quick and efficient. Other travellers had mentioned spending 3 hours in a queue at Shenzhen, especially at Chinese New Year when almost everyone is travelling to visit family for the holiday period. However we sailed through, and despite expecting a gargantuan queue round every next corner or a brutal cavity search just before the exit, we made it from start to finish in a trim 40 minutes.
The next part of our journey entailed an overnight bus ride from Shenzhen to Yangshou. A rural idyll which we had heard was the perfect contrast to Hong Kong with all its order and slinky malls. Our guidebook had already told us to book bus tickets early to avoid getting lumbered with the worst berths at the very back of the bus. These are undesirable for numerous reasons. The berth is not only over the back wheels so the bumpiest place to be, and situated right next to the toilet, it is also about half the length of the others in the bus (but sadly not half the price!). This means that unless
you are a hobbit, you spend the whole journey with your knees bent, enduring agonising cramp. Of course, given it was the New Year holiday this is exactly where we ended up, getting first hand knowledge of exactly why you need to book early. Lesson learned! The bus was a few hours late in reaching its destination, but as we would have been dumped at 5am if it had been on time, we were not too bothered.
At Yangshou bus station we were met by a small but determined group of ladies brandishing photos of their guest houses into our bleary faces. When we explained we already had somewhere booked, they swiftly changed tact. "Ah no, you no wanna go there. No heating. Very old. No bathroom." We resisted such blatant propaganda but promised to return to their places if out hotel did indeed turn out to be a hole in the ground.
Such fears were unfounded. Yanshou Mountain Retreat turned out to be everything we had hoped. I heard about it thanks to a brief comment someone had made on Thorntree (a chatboard hosted by Lonely Planet), and we checked out the website and liked what we
View from our hotel, Yangshuo
A lovely sight to greet you in the morning. So peaceful and relaxing. saw. YMR is set a little away from the main town so we got to escape the hustle and bustle of the tourist haven of West Street. It was so quiet and peaceful, yet only 25 minutes or so to cycle into the heart of the action. It did mean we had to get back home before nightfall (no lights on bikes and anyway to cycle in darkness seemed suicidal). One night we stayed late in town and tried to get a taxi back home around 11pm. There were none to be found, but we were befriended by a sweet lady at a tour agency who kindly rang around her contacts and actually got a taxi driver out of bed so he could take us home! Our crazy London late night ways just don't suit the sleepy pace of Yangshou. As you can see from the photo the view from our window was astounding. We stayed about 5 days, and for the last 2 we were the only guests there. This meant we got to fully hog the open fire in the lounge (actually we did that most nights anyway) in the company of a good book whilst slurping hot
chocolate and wishing we could find some marshmallows to roast (near wild heaven even without them).
Whilst in Yangshou I bullied Steve into taking a Calligraphy course with me, and I do believe he enjoyed himself more than he thought he ever would. It is fascinating to learn a little about a style of communication that is so very different from ours. There is something very pleasing about a blank sheet of paper and a paintbrush loaded with raven black ink. Everything we learned to write looked so exotic and graceful, even the figures for 'toilet'!
Another day trip included a trip to the Banyan Tree and Moon Hill. Banyan tree is just a very big tree. I am sure it has some other special meaning but we neglected to read that bit of the guide book and it happened to be on our way home. Moon Hill involves climbing a steep set of stone steps to get a great view of the valley below. We were chased up there by 2 enterprising ladies who wanted to sell us cold drinks. We were glad for some refreshment after the steep climb, but only bought one bottle off one
Betty, Yangshuo
One of the lovely girls who were staff at Yangshuo Mountain Retreat. She is holding a plate of sweets and biscuits to celebrate Chinese New Year where people stuff themselves as silly as we do at Christmas. of them. This caused extreme disatisfaction to the unremunerated party, especially when Steve would then not buy her postcards, jewellery or other entreaties. She was about 70 and when she smiled she displayed shiny silver teeth so she must be doing alright, even without our custom.
We had heard that a boat trip on the Li River is simply unmissable. This area is rumoured to have 70,000 mountains. Indeed every direction you turn there is a misty mound rising out from the foggy background. We were the only foreigners on our boat. All the other people were domestic tourists from China. Everyone was very smiley and seemed happy to have us along. Maybe we were their mascots for the day? This is the first time in over 3 months of travelling that we have really felt 'taken under wing' by our foreign hosts. One young lady took it upon herself to translate for us what the guide on the boat was telling the chinese tourists about the surrounding peaks (they all had names like 'camel watching a frog' or 'old man eating an apple' I forget exactly, they just looked like mountains to us, but we would nod enthusiastically
I don't want fish! Li River
Steve is beseiged by giggling ladies determined to make a sale. and squint at pointing fingers making out supposed figures). The boat stopped at one point, and we didn't realise until we were off that the only reason we were there was so we could be harranged by local women selling stone fish pendants, hideous water buffalo ornaments and wooden ducks. Being the only 'round eyes' onboard all the sellers headed for Steve and me. We had taken the precaution of painstakingly learning the mandarin for 'thankyou, we don't want it' and so we started trotting this out feeling that once they heard this they would leave us alone. Their reaction was not quite as we had hoped! They all started laughing heartily and nodding, but kept on thrusting their goods at us with even more determination than before. In fact more and more women seemed to surround us. One lady off the boat tried to help out, with her help Steve was able to start saying 'I don't want fish!' but this just made them laugh even harder. I managed to break away from the throng to take the picture of a surrounded Steve, and then we had to dive back onto the boat to get any peace.
One
little incident onboard gave us a little insight into the chinese psyche. There was a well to do middle aged gentleman travelling alone. At one point on the boatride he got quite excited by the views and came rushing down the boat to fetch a chair so he could move it to a better spot. Unfortunately in his haste he forgot to duck and whacked his head into a steel enforced wooden beam. The noise was horrific. He took the kind of thwack that would have you swearing madly, staggering around with your hand clamped over your throbbing forehead for a good 20 minutes or so, and leave you with a pounding angry headache for the rest of the day. But he seemed so mortified that we had witnessed this at close range, that he immediated dashed up the other end of the boat and tried to pretend that absolutely nothing had happened, despite the extreme pain and disorientation he must have been feeling. He ignored us for the rest of the journey up river, and gave us no eye contact so we could even pass on a look of sympathy.
A short while later we were approached by
a young teenage boy who enquired in carefully pronounced text book english whether we would like to go for a walk with his family. We took up the offer, electing to walk back, rather than go by boat. The boy was thirteen and acted as translator for his dad who was very keen to tell us within a few sentences that he liked Tony Blair and thought he had been right to go to war in Iraq. We were a little taken aback by such views so eagerly expressed in a country not renowned for freedom of speech. The boy suprised us further a little later on by asking if we knew of Chairman Mao and what we thought of him. Treading carefully I quoted back to him the official government summing up on Mao's time in power as "70% right, 30% wrong" and asked him what he thought of this. Without hesitation he told us that he thought it was more like '90% wrong, 10% right' it was nice to hear such strong unbridled opinions from one so young, I am not sure I would get so much sense if I asked a british teenager a similar question about
UK politics.
After an hour or so of strolling, we were invited to stop with the family for lunch. There was only one option - and it looked little more than a shack on the riverside. We decided to be brave and accept. The family ordered a range of dishes including several vegetable, one pork and one chicken. The chicken was most definitely fresh, I can personally vouch for this as it clucked as it was carried past me on the way to the kitchen. The meal took about an hour to cook so we had enough time to introuduce them to the wonders of Su-duko (Japanese so maybe this is why they haven't heard of it?) self congratulate each other on the next 2 Olympic venues and admire the view of the peaks. This was the first time we had been invited to eat with a chinese family. The vegetables were steamed and lightly seasoned. The rice was sticky (thank goodness, we only had chopsticks!). There was a plate of sausage that tasted very similar to spanish chorizo. The dried pork was delicious, though lots of fat to avoid. The chicken was a little 'rural' for our tastes
rustic lunch, Li River
Can you see the foot!!!!! - basically the entire chicken had just been hacked into pieces and cooked in a stock. The liquid was drained off and this was our soup to begin with. The remaining bird was poured into a serving bowl and everybody just took what they fancied. Steve and I both avoided this dish, partly because there was a big flubbery chicken foot sticking out of the top of the bowl. I just couldn't get past that! Also loads of bone and gristle to negotiate (the old hands were just spitting out these bits on the table!). Said foot (and its partner) were duly devoured by the two men of the group - they were definitely regarded as delicacies. The Dad grinned at me as he ate the foot, nimbling round it to get to the flesh, I tried not to look too horrified. This family seemed very liberal, both parents were teachers, so there was no awkwardness about the bill, we just split it. It came to around 14 yuan a head (1.50 quid).
All in all this was a very enjoyable encounter. We chatted pleasantly on the walk back and Steve exchanged email addresses with the boy. They even
gave us a lift back to Yangshou. A favourite day for us, very relaxed and easy and definitely more about what you have in common, than any differences. We felt that we were as interesting to them as they were to us, and everyone's day had been improved by the company of the other. A very welcome start to our time here in mainland China as this was probably the place we felt most trepidation for, yet we have already met much warmth and kindness.
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Ann Megann
non-member comment
I know you're married and all that but matching scarves... don't let it become matching jumpers or raincoats! It looks stunning (China that is, have moved on from scarves) - happy new year - as it's the year of the dog I think we can safely assume it will be an auspicious time for all.