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Published: September 13th 2014
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This morning we had a leisurely start to the day and a late ish breakfast. Afterwards we walked about 100m to the local round house. This area is known for it's large round houses. The one we visited was over 700 years old and the oldest one around. There is one gate as an entry/exit point and the one we visited had 3 floors. The windows started on the second floor and the ground floor rooms were used to store dry goods, animals and this is also where the toilet and washing facilities were as there was also a water and drainage system. Here famines and communities could live safely for acres months and protect themselves from thieves and attacks from enemies.
We had a wander around down stairs at the stalls selling tourist items and tea as there are tea plantations in the local area. Later we sat and had a tea taxing session with a lady who was a friend of Jim's. We tried several teas, red tea which is the equivalent of our breakfast tea, and a slightly different variety which tasted of treacle. An orange flavoured tea, this is done by scooping out the
flesh of an orange and filling it with tea. It's then baked in the oven until it's brown and baked hard. You cut off a couple of slices and then up cut these up and then add the hot water to brew. It's rates like orange and treacle. We also tried a camomile tea which was very fragrant and a mixed flower the which tasted of ash and wasn't very nice. Nitzan bought some tea and the glass pots used to brew the tea to take back to Israel. Stuart also had a go at hammering biscuits. They are made of flour, peanuts, honey and other ingredients. They are mixed together and then hammered out using mallets a few times then cut up and cooked on a griddle. They taste like a cross between peanut brittle and flap jacks :-)
After the round house and tea tasting session we headed back to the accommodation for a quick rest before having lunch. We then got changed and had a walk up to the lagoon. It was about 10 minutes walk away and once off the main road we walked through the vegetation along a slightly precarious path to the pool.
It wasn't huge but was a nice turquoise colour and unit was pretty cold and refreshing. We swam and Jim slid down the small water slide a couple of times. At 4.30pm we left as it's around that time that the farm further up the hill washes the farm slurry and animal bits away from animals which have been slaughtered there - nice lol!
We walked back down into the village and dried off a little in the heat of the afternoon sun. After a quick turn around we then piled into the mini van and Liu took us up to the local tea plantation. The tea plantation was on top of the local hillside and we had to claim the rat here bumpy and lot holed rids leading up to it , so we were shaken and not stirred lol. Unfortunately as it was moon festival the factory was closed as all the workers were on holiday so we were not able to walk around the factory to see how the different teas were made or taste them.
However we were able to take a walk around the tea plantation. We saw the
construction work that was going on, the owner was building a court yard and restaurant with an amazing view out over the valley below. This was where we should have originally camped and it would have been so cool to stay there, but progress is progress I guess.
So we took a walk around the fields of very neatly planted, small well maintained tea bushes and watched the sun set which was very beautiful. For some reason there was the sound of monks chanting coming from speakers in a couple of the fields. I'm not sure if this was an experiment to see if the tea grew faster, or bigger or tasted differently, but it did add to the whole ambience of the scene :-)
After the sun set we headed back to base. We were originally going to eat later and take showers first, but Liu wanted us to join him and his family for dinner as it was the day of the Moon Festival. We were of course very honoured and joined Liu and his wife and son and his parents for dinner. There was duck, two types, one I think was
smoked and one not, including the head if the duck which later in the evening Liu ate (I couldn't watch as it made me feel sick), pork, potatoes, vegetables and rice. He also provided many bottles of beer bless him. It was a real honour for us to be invited to dine with them, and for him to provide such lovely food and beer, he and his family were very generous.
During the meal there were many toasts made by everyone at the table and as is tradition Liu and his dad toasted with each of us individually several times over and said gambay which means down in one in Chinese, so we did. After dinner Stuart challenged Liu's dad to an arm wrestle and won, but his dad us 60 but still works and is a strong man. The beer continued to flow and we had a conversation with Liu via Jim our interpreter and ended up playing never ever have I lol. For those of you in the know we had to tread carefully here on what we said.
Finally it was time for bed so Bhavisha, Stuart and I got one
more beer and headed to our room to continue chatting and putting the world to rights. Nitzan had retired to bed much earlier on in the evening as he was a little drunk bless him as he isn't a big drinker and had nearly 3 bottles. We left a sick bucket by his bed just in case. Last time at monkey Janes when he had a few beers he was sick - which I didn't know about until much later in our trip, but unlike Stuart he threw up in the loo. So around 1.30am we called it a night and went to bed.
Xxx
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