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A village surrounded
Zengchong is surrounded by a river on three sides, making for an amazing view. The river also flows through channels between the houses. Part III of the backdoor route into Yangshou.
Zengchong is so small it doesn't have any proper accomodations. We were hosted by a family in the village. The family was that of the head of the Chinese communist party in the village, and they were the only ones providing accomodation. The rooms were nice enough and after a good dinner which our hosts cooked for us we retired for the night and slept on the floor (with some blankets for padding). There are no showers here. Personally, I was determined to wait with some even more basic sanitary needs until we got out of there, given the poor state of the facilities.
We had learnt our lesson from the day before. No more lazy awakenings at a quarter past six. Today we would begin our day at five. Our aim was to see the sunrise over the village, amble around it for the first part of the morning and then move on to the next village, Zhaoxing.
Walking in darkness, we ascended a hill overlooking the village and waited for sunrise. We were rewarded with a view of the village at dawn, and we observed how it slowly
Predawn Zengchong
Drum tower is prominently featured. came to life as smoke began rising from cooking fires and villagers made their way at first light into the fields.
The view which I saw that morning made all the trials of the previous day worth enduring. The view from the surrounding hills is unlike that of any other village. To the intrepid ones who are inspired by this blog to attempt the journey, a word of discretion. While the sights from above are sublime, the village itself is quite rundown and poor. The alleys are full of litter and dung and apart from the drum tower at the center of the village, there are no sights within it nor any activities besides observing the locals go about their routine life, farming, doing the laundry, carrying toddlers on their backs, etc. I don't think everybody would find justified the hours and hours of arduous travel required for the glimpse we got.
By 10am, after a few hours of hiking in and around the village, we were ready to move on. The three guys with the motorcycles from the previous night had left their phone numbers with us and so we gave our two-wheeled taxi service a call.
Here comes the sun
Reflections from the terraces as the sun gets ready to wake up. They showed up promptly. For what we were paying them, I wasn't surprised.
Learning from the previous day's experience, this time I was armed with sunglasses to discourage any aquatic activity in the vicinity of my pupils. By daylight the way was much quicker although I still held on for dear life at each bend in the road. When we arrived in Wangdong I felt like reciting a blessing of redemption. No more bikes for me if I can help it.
We didn't wait long before a goods truck making its way back to Rongjiang picked us up for a very reasonable 9Y. The ride, although dusty, was thankfully uneventful. No getting out to push this time. Just outside Rongjiang we breaked for lunch before getting on the two hour bus to Congjiang. Another winding route, but this time with a sane (ie: not swerving) driver on a paved road which is gentle on one's posterior. In Congjiang we again transfered for a two hour bus to Luoxiang. This time we hit dirt, but it was forgiving enough for me to sneak some naps here and there.
It was market day in Luoxiang, about 5km from our
Ray of light
A first ray of light shines on Zengchong. final destination for the day. Unfortunately, we arrived late in the day and no proper transportation was running to Zhaoxing. But after the previous days events, this was not something to phase us. We were struck by the uneargerness of the local populace to make a quick buck. No one was interested in giving us a (paid) lift to Zhaoxing. We finally cornered a guy with a tractor who was reluctant but, for fear of losing face in front of his friends by not making that quick buck I metioned, agreed to take us to Zhaoxing. He wanted 50Y. We talked him down to 30Y. He still made out handsomely.
Zhaoxing primer. The big attraction here is that it's the biggest Dong minority village. It has five, yes you read correctly folks, FIVE drum towers. Drum towers are central to Dong culture. This makes Zhaoxing an irresistible attraction to all you Dong culture aficionados. The Chinese, of course, realize this. This is why they have set about transforming the village into Lijiang No. 2 (Read: Disneyland with a vengeance). The problem is this: Apart from those drum towers, there is nothing to do in Zhaoxing. At least in Lijiang
Off to work
A farmer heads for the fields at first light. you are close to Tiger Leaping Gorge. There are interesting villages around there. Here there are only terraces. But for that you can go to Longsheng which is eight hours closer to anywhere else in the world. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention this. Zhaoxing is about 8 hours drive from any other meaningful tourist frequented town. This means that getting there is a serious hassle. So given all this, the attitude we encoutered in town just didn't make any sense to us.
We found a nice hotel for the night. This was the one point of light in Zhaoxing. The name of the place is the "Postal Service Hotel". I missed it on my first scan of the place. I stopped reading after "Postal", tagging it as a post office. They really should get the name changed. If the lady in charge there hadn't fished us off the street, we would have missed it completely. As it is, this lady was exremely helpful and patient with our questions and other requests. When the next day's bus schedule was changed without notice, she knocked on our door that morning and let us know that the bus would be early
A play of light and shadow
The sun casting its rays between the houses. Taken from one of the village's three wind and rain bridges. by two hours. If not for her, the bus would have cruised away while we were busy looking for a nice panoramic viewpoint of the village.
When we checked in and after we determined a price for the night, the lady (same one from the last paragraph), came up to us with 15Y tickets. Apparently, anyone staying a night in Zhaoxing has to buy these tickets. The village, a place not cordoned off by any fence and a public area by all accounts, charges admission. We were quite peeved. It's one thing to charge addmission upon entrance to a place, but charging a fee, after you've checked in for the night and there's no bus out of the place, was unacceptable. We adamantly refused to pay and didn't in the end. There's a limit to how much you can feel something warm dripping on your head and still call it water. And we felt they were getting us quite wet at this point.
As for the village itself, nice but overrated. Unless drum towers are your thing, don't fret about skipping this destination. Chinabackpacker, our source for this itinirary, gave Zhaoxing three stars out of four. I would
Drum tower!
Zengchong's drum tower. At 300 years of age, the oldest surviving Dong drum tower. (and my travel companions concur) give it one.
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