yangzhou

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Woke 6am.Kathy has organised an English speaking guide for today. Her name is Wendy. Yeah right, the Wendy Wu tour. Enough sarcasm from the ‘experienced’ travellers, because today’s touring is going to top all of the superlatives. This is the place where Bill Clinton said this is “awesome”.
We catch a ‘local’ bus and travel upstream where we hire a long tail bamboo raft for 250 Yuan.
I don’t know what to say. We sail down the Li River amongst the limestone outcrops, pass the farms and villages, floating on the sapphire water. It is absolute serenity. The picture on the 20 Yuan is part of this journey.
Two hours later, we arrive at Hua Ling, where we disembark and adjourn for breakfast .We eat off the street Chinese style. Noodle soup, fried noodles and fried vegetables which was absolutely delicious. 80 Yuan for 5 $11 Aussie.
Wendy has been telling us about life in china. People in the city are allowed to have one child. People in the country are allowed two, if the first is a girl, because you need a boy to look after you in old age as there is no welfare for country people. But in life there always is a ‘but’. If you pay the government you can have more. Don’t try and explain this to the Irish!
We bus back to Yangzhou and hire our push bikes and head into the countryside after first negotiating the city traffic. Not too bad really. I feel like someone out of ‘Painted Veil’.
We cycle through the rice paddies, past the peanuts, pamela, taro wood, cotton, cumquots , oranges, mandarins. Water buffalo’s wallow in the ponds, his master stretched out asleep under a lean-to nearby. New houses are being erected everywhere. The housing bubble is about to burst in china with a bang.
Men laze around playing cards whilst the women tend the farms, mix the concrete, lay the bricks, wash the clothes, guide the tourists, tend the young and it seems everything else required. I need to move to China.
The landscape is gorgeous, almost surreal; another word one shouldn’t use a long way from Harden.
A storm is brewing and there is not a breath of wind. The sweat is rolling off my face in a torrent. The limestone outcrops become misty. Then it breaks. It is rainy season. Sheets of water bucket down upon us, our vision is nearly totally obscured. The cleansing of the land but unluckily, the drenching of the backpacker.
We arrive back at our hotel, worn out, bum sore, drenched, but utterly inspired. There really must be a god. Who else could create such beauty.

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Comments

[anonymous]

Whats the definition of a wannabe traveller

[sister wannabe traveller]

Scenery is "awesome"!! I am drooling.