Advertisement
Published: September 5th 2017
Edit Blog Post
A trip out to the countryside! Today we were heading out to explore the bamboo forest in the Ningbo area. The drive proved just how vast China is, we drove for two hours (we did get lost a bit) and when we reached our destination we were still in Ningbo, I think maybe even the same county. The drive wasn't too bad we left the highway and the scenery got more and more rural the further we drove. It was so nice to be out of the city and see a different side to Ningbo. We finally found the village where we were meeting the others and the bamboo farmer's house. We had drove past it several times. The family had prepared some snacks for us and I got stuck in as I was feeling pretty hungry. They had made this green dumpling stuffed with minced pork and some veggies. It was delicious. We chilled by the stream at the back of the house for a bit before leaving.
We drove to the bamboo forest. We followed the road and then went off onto a track. We kept climbing and came to a traffic jam! There were some cars trying
to get down and the path wasn't wide enough for us to pass, so we had to park up and let them pass. We made it to a clearing and parked up. The views were pretty up here, we could see down to some kind of lake. We had to walk for about ten minutes along a track to reach the start of the forest proper. There, the farmer explained to us how to spot the bamboo and dig it. We all spread out searching for the bamboo shoots poking out of the ground. The slope was quite steep and I didn't have much luck finding any bamboo. I thought I had spotted some a few times, but it wasn't. I found the lads, who had got a good spot full of bamboo. They said to look close to the bamboo trees and you will find some. They were right. I soon found some! It was a right bugger to dig out of the soil as the bits I had found were pretty big, I had to get the lads to help me. At least I added to our big pile of bamboo. After a couple of hours, we headed
back to the farmer's house. The drive back was gorgeous. The sun was shining and we were surrounded by tree covered hills.
Back at the farmer's house, the female member of his family had prepared lunch for us. They had made quite the feast! The dishes just kept coming. We had so many different thins to eat. It wasn't fancy food, but good hearty stuff. My favourites were the bamboo, I had never had fresh bamboo prepared like this before, it was so good, and the almost mashed potatoes and gravy, I think of this as a Western dish, so was surprised to get it here. After our lunch we had free time, so I went for a little walk around this part of the village. There wasn't much life about on this Sunday afternoon. There were a few kids playing out and some old people walking around. A few of the houses looked abandoned, I wonder if their owners had migrated to the city. There were some gorgeous flowers about. We went up to the temple, but it was closed so we couldn't go in for a look around. Then it was time for the drive home, which
didn't take as long as we didn't get lost this time.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.096s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 13; qc: 30; dbt: 0.0583s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb