You say Shijaizhuang

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Our third port of call is Shijaizhuang, a provincial capital but definately not on the tourist trail. While most people avoid towns where they can't pronounce the name - I had an urge to visit the relatively near by stone village of Yujaicun. This meant dragging an unwilling Thomas onto four different buses, which took over three hours to the middle of nowhere. When we got to the stone village we were marched between reams of chinese explanations as to the history of the village. Our guide clearly had a set route and expected us to spend ample time reading (or in our case creating our own) explanations.

The highlight of the village was a tower built by a 'madman' (The Lonely Planets descriptor not mine!!) who with no experience of architecture took it upon himself to build a tower so tall that he could see Beijing from the top, he conducted his 25 year construction work only at night and without the assistance of any one else in the village. Unfortunately there werent any particularly high towers and certainly none where you could view Beijing so we had to make an educated guess.

I havent decided whether I was more excited about the village or the fact that I actually got us there and back without any English being used - at one point we had the whole bus of people (about twenty people in total) involved in a huge discussion about how best to get us to where we want to go! While Shijaizhuang had little of cultural interest it was refreshing to be out of the tourist trap and get a better taste of Chinese life and the kind, curious and funny locals.

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Photos

Dont mess with me
One of the residents of Yujaican

Temple built at night
This took 25 years built only at night with no foundations

The stone village
Even the beds were made of stone