Drum Towers and Wind and Rain Bridges on the road to Pingtan

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Hi All,

Another cracking nights sleep and up early ready for another walk. I must admit I was a little stiff from yesterday. For those of you that know me you may notice that I'm now having to walk with a stick and I can no longer walk very far without wearing a sports brace on my knee. It does ache though at night.
Anyway enough about me getting old. Headed south today as advised by the Lonely Planet. It was a day of walking through again stunning scenery and again very friendly poeple. There was always someone to talk to and when we came across a drum tower we were always invited to sit down and the men would offer me cigarettes or some tobacco to roll my own. All the men here smoke and also some of the women. It got to around 1 o'clock and we were strating to feel hungry when we were walking through a village and there were some ladies who had a place where you could eat outside their house. There were huge woks set up outside and a lady was slaughtering some chickens. They invited into their house and cooked us a lovely lunch of rice, eggs and cabbage. The whole familiy was there from a baby boy right up to his great-grandma. Again such hospitality. We tried to offer them some money but they refused to take any. I think they were glad to see some foreign faces. So it was with full bellies that we continued our walk onto Pingtan. We walked through lots of villages with some beautiful drum towers and some very old wind and rain bridges. When we arrived in Pingtan, about 10 kms from Huangdu, we were approached by a man who could speak English. He told us where we were, how far we'd walked and pointed us in the right direction for the bridge and tower in the village. Pingtan felt a bit wild westerny. There was one road that went through it and behind it was a village of traditional wooden buildings. The bridge here looked very old and had a slogan written across it about being a good socialist, or something to that effect. Again we took the bus back to Huangdu. After a wash and a brush up we went to the performance hall in the village to see a show of traditional Dong dancing and singing. They had a dance that they did with bamboo and they invited people up to have a go so I had a try. It wasn't easy and it smarted when the bamboo caught your ankles.
This was our last day here and it's a real shame we couldn't stay longer. We've really had a fantastic time here and we will always have fond memories of the Dong people that live here who have been so generous, warm-hearted and friendly. I cannot reccomend this place strongly enough it is a must see and must visit.

Enjoy the photos and Jah Bless

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