Well, well, it's been a busy 2 weeks or so since my last post. Lesley and I, along with our friends Natalie and Steve, decided to make the most of the 2 and a bit weeks we had before school starts to see some more of China. Seeing more of China is like seeing more of Canada, not a small undertaking. Add to this that the time before and after the Chinese New Year is a very busy time for travel in China, like 300 million people trying to get somewhere busy.
On January 27th we left Chengdu on what was meant to be a 25 hour train ride to Liuzhou in Guangxi province. Brighter minds prevailed and, to avoid back tracking, we got off the train in San Jiang in Guangxi. A bus ride later we ended up in Long Sheng, where we jumped on yet another bus to get to Ping An village in the area known as 'the Dragon's Backbone'. On this bus we met a local Yao (one of China's many indigenous, and sometimes autonomous, non-Han people) woman named Xi Mi who invited us to spend the night and have New Years dinner with her family in their village on the way to Ping An. We quickly learned, on entering her mother's home, that the Yao live a very simple life and we soon saddled up next to Xi Mi's other family members around the cooking fire which was burning in the living room. Xi Mi's mother was dressed in the traditional Yao fashion. One of their distinguishing features is their hair, which touches the ground, but is worn wrapped in a bun piled on top of their head. Even with this mass of hair, this woman was still only about 4' 6"! Amidst all this traditional garb her cell phone was never far away. In China EVERYONE has a cell phone, and you can get a cell signal almost anywhere...
Now I appreciate fresh food as much as the next person, but it's not often that I get to meet my meat before I eat...Steve was lucky enough to pet the chicken before it met it's end, and I saw the fish swimming in a bowl in the sink before it ended up at the end of my chopsticks. Xi Mi's family was wonderfully generous and sent us on our way the next morning with full bellies.
We reached Ping An before noon and after securing our beds for the night, we set off to explore the incredible terraced landscape of the Dragon's Backbone. I would hazard a guess that people in this region have been living this way for centuries if not a millenia. Now we do have pictures, but they will have to wait until we get back to Chengdu, but if you can imagine the entire North Shore of Vancouver terraced and growing corn, rice, and many other vegetables. Oh yeah, and all the work is done with a hoe and a plow pulled by a small Ox!
At dinner in Ping An our time in China started to show as we all happily enjoyed Pizza in this rustic village.
The next morning we were off again, taking a bus back to Long Shen and then onto Guilin and finally Yang Shuo. Yang Shuo is a busy tourist destination on the Li river, and is home to incredible limestone karst mountains. These mountains create dramatic scenery and feeling that Dragons may indeed exist...On our first morning in Yang Shuo, Lesley and I started our day with a boat cruise on the Li River and spent the rest of it cycling around the countryside with Steve and Natalie. I think bikes have to be the best, although not always the safest way, to explore a place as we soaked up the ambience of the small villages we rode through to choruses of 'Ni Hao' and 'Hello'.
As this is a bit of a whirlwind trip we were off yet again the next afternoon, back to Guilin to catch an 18 hour train to Kunming in Yunan province. I have never done much train travel and enjoy it for the opportunity to take in the scenery, such as the 'Stone Forest' we passed through as we approached Kunming. Travelling by train also makes you realize that in China any land suitable or semi-suitable for agriculture is terraced and put to use, after all, that's how you feed 1.5 billion people. We spent the day exploring Kunming, and thoroughly enjoyed it for all its sights and sounds. That night we boarded a sleeper bus for Jing Hong, and a bumpy, somewhat sleepless 11 hours later we were there. Jing Hong is located in the Xishuangbanna region of southwest Yunan, and is bordered by Laos and Burma (Myanmar). You feel, in this region, like you are in Southeast Asia, not China. The local Dai people are related to Thai people futher south, and along with the Dai, there are Indian/Burmese looking people. Han chinese make up only about 30% of the population in this region. The temples have more of a Thai look, and while all the signs are written in Chinese characters, there is Dai script below. The weather was hot and sunny, and it was a nice change to be in t-shirts and shorts and enjoying fresh pineapple and watermelon juice, as we have been freezing cold since getting to China. We were fortunate to be able to enjoy the local botanical gardens which were beautiful, spacious, and quiet, you could almost forget you were in China.
Take a look at these Koi that were in a pond at the Botanical gardens!
The next day we headed off on an overnight trek through the local countryside to take in the sights and some local hospitality. On the morning we set off I felt awful, Natalie and Steve had had brief boughts of travellers stomach in Yang Shuo, and Lesley was currently struggling with that also. We didn't want to miss the trip though, so we sucked it up and set off on a 17 kilometer hike (to be followed by a 19 km hike on the second day).
Our first stop was in a local Hani village where we had lunch and our guide, Mr. Rush, had to find a local willing to cook for us. We were entertained by the local kids playing jump rope while our meal was prepared in a smoke blackened kitchen. As with most meals in China, from simple ingredients came a plethora of dishes full of flavour to nourish us for the rest of our hike.
Once we left the village we hiked through hills covered in tea bushes, and eventually came upon a house were we sampled, and ended up buying, locally harvested organic Pu er tea. The rest of our hike took us along the sides of mountains that varied in their cover from dense jungle to hillsides clear cut to grow Rubber trees newly planted to supply China's exploding car market with tires. These mountains were once rich in wildlife, including Elephants, snakes, and birds, but the monoculture that replaced the jungle has none of this. In our sights for some of the hike was the new expressway that can get you to Bangkok in 14 hours, the price of progress...
Anyhow, that's part 1. Lesley will put together part 2 and post it soon.
Thanks for reading.
Ian
Take a look at these Koi that were in a pond at the Botanical gardens!
The next day we headed off on an overnight trek through the local countryside to take in the sights and some local hospitality. On the morning we set off I felt awful, Natalie and Steve had had brief boughts of travellers stomach in Yang Shuo, and Lesley was currently struggling with that also. We didn't want to miss the trip though, so we sucked it up and set off on a 17 kilometer hike (to be followed by a 19 km hike on the second day).
Our first stop was in a local Hani village where we had lunch and our guide, Mr. Rush, had to find a local willing to cook for us. We were entertained by the local kids playing jump rope while our meal was prepared in a smoke blackened kitchen. As with most meals in China, from simple ingredients came a plethora of dishes full of flavour to nourish us for the rest of our hike.
Once we left the village we hiked through hills covered in tea bushes, and eventually came upon a house were we sampled, and ended up buying, locally harvested organic Pu er tea. The rest of our hike took us along the sides of mountains that varied in their cover from dense jungle to hillsides clear cut to grow Rubber trees newly planted to supply China's exploding car market with tires. These mountains were once rich in wildlife, including Elephants, snakes, and birds, but the monoculture that replaced the jungle has none of this. In our sights for some of the hike was the new expressway that can get you to Bangkok in 14 hours, the price of progress...
Anyhow, that's part 1. Lesley will put together part 2 and post it soon.
Thanks for reading.
Ian
1 comment:
Wow guys - your trip looked/sounded amazing (apart from being ill of course).
Post a Comment