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Published: June 30th 2011
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The roar of rolling trucks, dusty like exploding mine, and street scene like after earthquake. Yes...I was talking about Yuanyang, the same Yuanyang I used to love so much, the same Yuanyang that is being transformed into another Disneyland like Lijiang or Yangshaw. "the rice terrace need to be protect" the authority claimed! but...the rice terrace never was in any danger!!!??? Not only the government or the commercial company in town, even the local whoever could lay a hand on any pieces of land, now the digging and building works...the torning down of hills and trees...the reformed of landscapes....They said they would try to apply for world heritage for its cultural and natural ingradients after put in all the man-made effects! what was growing inside their heads????
Came back after almost 2 months of travel and find the town still a constructing site. well...guess I can use another trip. "lychee festival" popped up from internet, and Pingbian wasn't that far as well. Although I wouldn't put too much hope on this kind of festival. But there still got some market I could check out. With the road work completed, the journey from Mengzi is far more comfortable and quicker. The small
Pingbian(@1300m) town hadn't change much since my last visit 5 years ago. The festival was exactly what I had expected...Nothing! A concert opening in the evening with some out-class singers which cost 100 yuan for ticket, and what about the festival of the lychee? The story came from the famous Emperor's concubine Lady Yang in Tang Dynasty, as the King wanted to give happiness to his concubine so much but without much successed. but one day when Lady Yang tried the lychee that was with the tribute from southern China to the Empire. She smile with a happy face, for this the King name this lychee the "Feizixiao" - The smile of the Emperor's concubine! I used to ate a lot of this kind of Feizixiao in Hongkong when it was in season, the lychee is juicy and the pit is small which gave a lot of meat. more than 10 years ago they imported the seeding into Pingbian as they discovered the claimate was rather suitable to grow the Feizixiao in Pingbian, and indeed the crops provided good income for the locals, so they sutup this festival and name it Feizixiao Festival, this time was the third year. During
the festival there was a makeshift street for vendors selling those typical rubbish like everywhere, and lychee were randomly sell around the market. but not the trade fare like what they had advertised(perhaps because of the rainy weather). Festival??!! or whatever they like to call it . I only knew some places still wanted to charge you 100 yuan for a shitty room.
Anyways...I concentrated on my market tour, but with a series of typhoons running wild in the eastern coast of China, it also affected the weather here, clouded and rain all the time. I did check out the Pingbian market, it was totally dominated by Miao, and there also some Zhuang, some people claimed they are Yi but..."we dress like the Han now" a man said. there is a market hall in town and on market day, a side street filled with vendors, quite busy in fact, as the festival was the day before, the mechanical game-fare still in town, and it attracted a lot of people. "pa...pa...pa...." the sound came from my feet like fire cracker, it was my brand new sandals which I had brought in Nepal year ago, the stripes just broken off like cracker
explosion. "what's the hell" I exclaimed!!! but...you couldn't complained about famous brand sandal which only cost 15 yuans, and now you know why it was so cheap on the first place! luckily I was in the middle of the market where I could easily buy a substitude. I could easily imagine far more embarrass location when the "pa...pa...pa..." happening! Parted with a 50 bill and I got myself a pairs of Bitis, my favorite Vietnamess brand!
I also revisited heated Baihe(@350m) market as I want more pictures of the Yi there, they call themselve Pupoa Yi, beauitful headdress laid with seashells, long sleeve shirt with embroidered graphical pattern. long dark skirt and legging. there also a great number of Miao came with crown headdress in the market, the area live many Zhuang people too. Part of the market was setup along the rail track, but seldom had train come pass here nowaday. Baihe market gave a great market scene, makeshift vendor stands filled both side of the street which snake up the hillside through the small town, beside the lychee, peach and pineapple also are in season at the moment. Now there is one guesthouse in town provided a base
to stay if you what to explore the area futher. There were a series of market following after Baihe, but the weather wasn't promising. It was raining really hard that night, and someone forgot to shut the window ouside my room at the corridor, I find myself stepping into 2 inch height of water when I heading to the bathroom in the middle of the night! so I decided to stop advancing to the futher market area, even on the way back to Mengzi, there was couple of landslide on the brand new highway...yeah...those market could wait!
Back in Mengzi area I discovered a market Xibeile(@2000m), a very small market dominated with the Puyi with sharp orange colour costume, there also some Miao in the market too. as the late departure of the public bus service(only one minibus/day at 9am), the market was at its end when I got there, luckily there are returning market truck, otherwise you need to wait until 4pm for the public minibus for the return trip. The drive up to Xibeile provided a great view of the surrounding of Mengzi area, the view of the 2 lakes Changqiaohai and Datunhai could be clearly seen up
there. You could combined the day trip with visiting the old French railway station Bisezhai, which is right at the road junction before tee off uphill to Xibeile.
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