Countryside

---

Ok, if you remember my last ramblings you will no doubt recall my wish to visit Suzhou "The Venice of the East". I left shanghai clutching a ticket to Suzhou, hopped on a train and waited, the journey was supposed to take about 2 hours.

5 hours later the train stopped and lots of people seemed to be getting off. this must be it thought i and i asked the old lady next to me (in my very best chinese) "Suzhou, here? Suzhou??" she laughed at me and pointed to the back of the train and said something wholly unintelligible. Turns out i was in Nanjing, I figured i may as well stroll about here for a bit and see what its like, saw a handsome pagoda (i would have taken a photo but my camera is being an arse and the memory has shrunk from 300photos to about 15.) aincent city walls and read about the citys interesting history. turns out when the Japanese where on their way the Chinese retreated from Nanjing but wouldnt let the citizens follow, so when the Japanese arrived they made short work of the women and children, pretty miserable stuff.

Anyway, after Nanjing I decided i was bored of being chilly all the time so i headed south to Fuzhou. the train journey can only be described as purgatory. 20 hours of the chinese shouting, spitting and generally being disagreeable. In 'hard seat' (which is 4th class to you and me, i guess they dont call it 4th class for some communinst reason. but hey what do i know.) the lights stay on all night, the toilet is what a western one would look like had a hand grenade been dropped down it, and the floor is slippery from the spittle. lovely.

Fuzhou is level with Taipei in Taiwan if your struggeling to find it on the map thingy at the bottom of the page. its warm but not hot and there are alot of colonial buildings, as there are all down the east coast from the time of foriegn concessions. There is little to see in Fuzhou, so I headed to Xiamen which is pretty close, that was much prettier, kind of like a chinese brighton with less wind.

After Xiamen i headed to Guangzhou which is 2 hours from Hong Kong so its v.warm and nice, there is a small island called Shaman Do which is very pretty, very very European in style. took a bus to Guailin and then another here to Yangsho, entirley geared to the tourist, which could get frustrating but is convienent for the moment. The banana pancakes are glorious and they have poached eggs which i havent had for a long time. No Marmite though which is a shame.

I took a bike ride today went off into the countryside and took some snaps, as you can see its almost as pretty as the Northamptonshire countryside. Was offered a ride by a small local boy pulling a rikshaw but i thought that would be quite improper and offered to push him around on it, he was overjoyed, and the onlookers thought it was hilarious.

Tomorrow i shall go on a bamboo raft downriver but i think it will be a little chilly, and perhaps not terribly stable so if i no longer post photos its due to me falling in and the camera getting wet.

I shall stay here for a while, i hear there are many minority people in the surrounding area so it would be interesting to go and see some of them- as soon as i am bored with this place i shall head off to the south west near the Laos border for visa. will have to leave the rest of China for another time.

Oh yes, if you have any questions or anything just whack them on a comment. Im pretty sure i am far too ignorant to answer any but the most simple, words of less than 2 syllables variety- but i shall do my upmost.

cheerio

---

Photos

countryside too
from now on, to aviod calling all the photos countryside, i shall give them names. because i have nothing better to do.

countryside
i mean Blanch

Han
as in Solo