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Published: April 21st 2008
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Leaving Lijiang We arrived in Lijiang in the dark, but left this morning at 7 AM, on a warm day with the sun just starting to rise above the mountains. This is a beautiful spot, with near-perfect weather, and I can see why the Naxi settled in this mountain valley some 500 years ago.
The kids were all heading off to school when we walked out of town with our baggage in tow (no cars allowed in the Old Town). They must start school pretty early! They were all dressed alike, in red pants with a red and white jacket. A woman had fired up her gas stove (? propane) and had the huge cast iron skillet hot, and was frying up the rounds of bread that everyone eats here. And hotdogs! So the kids were all stopping to pick up fried bread rounds and hotdogs on the way to school. Who says the Chinese eat healthy?
We took off from the airport about 30 minutes out of town, and headed east across the mountain range that extends almost all the way to Kunming, perhaps 500 miles away. It is stunning scenery from the air. The mountains are
all below the tree line, but very rugged, and extending as far as the eye could see. There were occasional villages in the valleys, some larger towns identifiable by the tell-tale smoke stacks from power plants, and lots of rice paddies meandering down the slopes…just like you see in the pictures. Also, some other grain growing, that was very green and about 18 inches tall at this point. The fields are much smaller than farms I have seen in the states, and the rows are quite narrow…there are obvious walking paths about every 6 feet. Makes for a wonderful patchwork from above.
Air travel in China is pretty cheap, but hardly convenient. Very long lines at the security checks are to be expected, and they move at a snails pace because the same person who checks you in the x-ray walk-through, also stops to wand everyone who buzzes. So, the entire line comes to a halt whenever someone leaves a coin in his or her pocket. There is no such thing as a connecting flight in China. If you have a stopover, you must pick up your baggage, exit the secure area, check in for your next flight, and
stand in line again for security. Don’t’ even think about scheduling less than a couple hours between flights. Even the continuing flights require passengers to deplane, remove all carry-on luggage and pick up a new boarding pass. This seems to be perfectly acceptable to the traveling public. Why should I complain?? Can you tell I am waiting in Kunming on a 4 hour layover enroute to Yanshou?
Many Hands, Few Machines It seems like huge sections of China skipped right past the Industrial Revolution. I guess with the plethora of people available for manual labor, the idea of mechanization just never took root.
You know that great IKEA commercial with the VW piled so high with stuff it can’t make it under the bridge? Transform the VW to a bike and you can visualize how commercial goods travel here: water, fruit, computers, vegetables, clothing, beer, and bags of rice teetering and pulling on the ties that hold them to the cart behind the guy peddling his single geared bike.
In Beijing, I saw roads and sidewalks being repaved without any evidence of machinery. Workers lined 3 - 4 abreast walk the old road, removing the old
bricks by hand. Someone else comes along with a wheelbarrow and carries the old material to a pile blocks away. Sand to level the new roadway is carried to the worksite in 2 slings of material suspended from the opposite ends of a pole that is balanced across the upper back of the worker. Then more workers start laying new bricks or stones. They start at intervals about 50 feet apart and work until they meet the previous workers starting point. God only knows how they make everything match up, but they do.
On the farms we have seen, farmers till and plant by hand. Jim and I watched one couple from the bus we were on, manhandling a big wooden implement meant to create furrows. The wife pulled from the front, the husband pushed from the back. They made slow progress. Not a tractor, or even a donkey in sight. No wonder the fields are small. We did find some farmers near Lijiang, having harnessed their cow, trying to coax it to walk in a straight line, pulling another antique implement of some kind. And while out biking, we saw a young women loading a large basket with
dung, and carrying it on her back across the field to a pile by the side of the road. Then back again for more. Amazing strength and perseverance these people have.
We have arrived in Guilin, and will be taking a 90 minute taxi ride to Yangshou.
Ciao!
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