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Published: August 6th 2007
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So our culinary sagas continue and our Chinese remains ambiguous to say the least.
On occasion we've had to go into the kitchen with the chef and point to the ingredients we'd like prepared. Faced with baskets of vegetables and an array of spices this is actually quite fun dreaming up some crazy stir fried vege combination.
Sometimes we take the phrasebook and point to dishes we might like in the hope that they can prepare that particular dish. Other times we've wandered the tables of a busy restaurant, investigated what other diners are eating, returned with the waiter and pointed to the particular dish to order it. This is by far the most successful method of actually getting something you want, and surprisingly most diners are obliging in letting us lurk at their tables and poke fingers at their meals. Some diners go so far as to point out their favoured dish - nothing quite like a recommendation from a local.
Failing all of the above methods we've been known to take a bit of pot luck and order something random on the menu (usually a meat dish - damn!) and Suz will pick out the vegetable
component of the meal, or otherwise we give up entirely and go to a Western restaurant.
We're not alone in our plight. We heard a story about some travellers who used a picture book to order their dinner. They envisaged a meal of braised duck and vegetables so pointed to an illustration of a duck; and that's what they got - a whole duck (beak, eyes and all) delivered in a casserole dish!
One place we didn't need to worry about food was Mama Naxis in Lijiang. Mama is famous on the Yunnan travel circuit and no itinerary is complete without stopping into Mamas for a meal. Which is what we did, three nights in a row! Mama is a constantly smiling exuberant Naxi woman who speaks in loud rapid-fire Chinese, interspersed with "It's OK. Mama look after you. No problem. Now eat!.
Dinner at Mamas is legendary. At about 6pm the food starts rolling out of the kitchen, the dishes are varied and consist of whatever was on special at the market that day. A seemingly never ending supply of delicious dishes flows from the kitchen - meat, tofu, nuts and vegetables are transformed into our
irresistable dinner. The ever vigilant girls on rice patrol hover between the tables, poised to top up your bowl often sneaking a spoonful in when you're mid mouthful and thus powerless to stop them.
So aside from eating, we've traversed a large part of China over the past couple of weeks ...
Shichuan Province
In Chengdu we visited the adorable Giant Pandas and watched them eating, playing, eating, sitting, eating and wandering around looking for more food. The roly poly baby pandas were a bit more exciting and climbed trees, swam and played with each other.
In the centre of Chengdu we were stalked by some random Chinese guy with his camera who felt the need to paparazzi us constantly; good naturedly we snapped him back. The Sichuan Opera was a great night out and had a host of acts ranging from music, singing, dancing, shadow puppetry and comedy.
We visited the last remaining old part of Chengdu and hung out in the narrow laneways and sipped tea with the locals. Armed with loads of smiles and our Mandarin phrasebook, we met Hu a 19 year old local who works in administration and loves
fashion, her PSP and Britney Spears (and unintentionally we became the bearers of bad news when we explained that Britney had gone a bit nuts recently and chopped off her hair!).
Yunnan Province
The weather in Yunnan wreaked havoc with our plans to trek through Tiger Leaping Gorge, so we had to settle on a day trip out to the gorge instead of three days trekking. Given the dire state of the weather and constant need to be with our umbrellas proved to be a much more sensible option than trudging along muddy cliffs, and avoiding landslides in the torrential rain.
So we hung out in Lijiang, a cool little town with an ancient town centre, filled with canals, narrow winding cobbled streets and traditional wooden buildings with curved rood tiles. Step outside the old town though and the city is one great big modern concrete jungle filled with bright lights and multinational food chains.
Guangxi Province
On the train we met Beryl from Germany a fascinating and really well-travelled woman who's been almost everywhere imaginable; now she's settled into Yangshou and plans to study Mandarin.
Yangshou has to be
one of the most beautiful places we've been - craggy limestone peaks emerge from the plains giving the landscape a humpy and surreal appearance. We hired bikes and explored the countryside passing through small villages and watched locals working the rice fields, and local children as they played in the river. The weather went from soggy to scorching and whilst on the bikes we found ourselves in the thick of it - red faced and sweaty peddling along the backroads with some new friends.
We met a bunch of ex-pats who led us astray one night (and well into the morning), best value was Chelsea a Melbournian who's been teaching English there for months. Ended up tipsy and starving at the "night market" at 5am (as it was closing) and had a big feed of noodles. Beats the greasy kebab hands down!
... onwards to Hong Kong and Macau
Our Route:
Chengdu > Panzhihua (by overnight sleeper train) > Lijiang (by bus) > Dali (by bus) > Kunming (by overnight sleeper train) > Guilin (by overnight sleeper train) > Yangshou (by bus)
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Shell in China
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Mama Naxi
Glad you guys loved Mama Naxi as much as I did. Sorry to have missed catching up with guys in China. Love the Panda photos.