I am alive
I can't believe how much time has gone by since I last updated. A number of factors have made this so. One is that I got sick for a bit in Yangshuo. This was the kind of sick that puts you in the bathroom for four days or so, and didn't seem to want to go away regardless of how many bananas and noodles I ate, ultimately making me elect to visit a doctor in Yangshuo which was an experience unto itself. I was walking through the hallways with a Chinese friend who was helping me and a doctor crossed the hall with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. Despite my condition I had to laugh. Anyway, several days of antibiotics later and I'm feeling much improved. So that was a main reason. Another is that internet access when it is available has been somewhat unreliable due to what I believe are the machinations of the Chinese government. I cannot login to Flickr to upload my pictures though I can reach the site to view them. This is consistent from internet cafes, though some hostels vary. It is clearly something deliberate and not accidental and it is driving me nuts. My pictures are piling up and these are the best of the trip. Hopefully by the time I do the next update I will have sorted it all out. It's really a bit ridiculous. Finally, the last few nights have had no internet at all, but I will explain that below in a bit.
All traffic signs and regulations are merely suggestions at best here. I have had several occasions to be on buses the last few days, and numerous occasions before that, and the drivers are clearly insane. It's best not to look through the front window, though I can't help myself often enough. The driver rides fairly regularly in the oncoming lane of traffic, regardless of whether there is in fact oncoming traffic or not. He will speed up to pass a few cars and the people, motorcycles, other buses, or cows will also speed up and somehow nobody gets killed, so far at least. Also interesting is that none of the Chinese people seem nervous about it in the least. I think today the bus driver passed somebody in the oncoming lane who was also passing somebody in the oncoming lane, while like 5 motorcycles and a bus shot by in the oncoming shoulder. I just cover my eyes now and try to enjoy the scenery out the side window instead of the front.
So we spent a whole bunch of time in Yangshuo. I wrote about it a bit I believe. I spent several days trying to recover and had some great food despite that whole condition, and then we went biking again our last day out into the villages which was great. We rode to an ancient bridge and had lunch at a local's house in a village called Yulong Cun, right near the bridge looking out at the Yulong river as chickens and children ran amuck. Lots of dogs too, apparently the leash laws aren't as stringent in rural Guangxi as they are in Manhattan. That day we took a few courageous turns and ended up in fields of crops walking our bikes on paths too small to ride without falling off the side into hay or mud or corn or whatever else it is they grow out there. The scenery was as usual amazing, I will sort out the pictures soon. By the way, a lot of Chinese toddlers where pants with no butt on them, kind of like Prince did at that one awards show. Was that in college? Man, I feel old sometimes.
So we took a bus after a week in Yangshuo to a place called Dazhai, a village among the Longji rice terraces. Longji is a giant area with steep hills that look like giant stairs covered with rice plants, or at this particular time, recently harvested rice plants. The scenery is amazing and the villages get some tours during the day, but it doesn't take much at all to get away from the tourists because there are a zillion stairs and no other way to get up there and most tourists aren't too interested in that. We stayed the night in Dazhai and then hiked four hours to another village called Pingan. There's so many details of these places, it's hard to remember everything now. The villages are inhabited by ethnic minority groups within China, in the case of Dazhai the Yao minority and in the case of Pingan and a few small surrounding villages, the Zhuang minority. Some of you will be happy to hear that there is also a Dong minority group in the region. They each have their own language which sounds to me to be a dialect of Mandarin, but that's a wild guess based on listening to them speak it for a few days. I'm sure wikipedia would shed more light on this if I could reach it. The women of the Yao minority don't cut their hair from the time they are married, so they all have really, really long hair which they wrap up elaborately into a turban-like shape and then offer to show tourists for a cool 5RMB if you are lucky. They also relentlessly hound the tourists to buy various handicrafts and once again, no is an unacceptable answer. We continue to politely refuse various requests but have slowly built a catalog of the most irritating offers in different places. They mean well generally speaking or are just looking to make a buck, but I am so tired of hearing "LOOKY!" "BAMBOO!?" "MASSAGEY?" and "POST-A-CARD?" I can't even tell you. Bamboo is a ride on a bamboo ride by the way, and people will run at you from the fields to make sure you realize they do indeed also have a bamboo raft they'd be happy to take you on at any time that happens to be convenient. Anyway, the people who live in these places are kind of amazing. There are giant wooden houses on the side of these mountains and they have carried every single piece of building material up here on their backs. It was a common sight to see what was apparently a 150 year old woman with a bamboo stick over one shoulder, and on each end of bamboo a giant bale of wood or some other crazy supply. Other common cargo included giant logs over the shoulder, or a crossbeam with two giant buckets filled with rocks or something else that looked really painful to trudge up, but they do it every single day. Tellingly, they don't seem to smoke in these villages quite as much as they do in the flatter parts of China, at least as far as I could tell.
So we spent two nights in these remote villages in rooms that resembled places I lived in summer camp. The food was good and in the last few weeks has evolved to be no problem whatsoever. I'm pretty comfortable ordering in Chinese now without a menu, just explaining what we want and they are only too happy to provide it. We've had great noodles, soups, some unusual and tasty vegetables, and then in one place they had a burrito and we couldn't resist trying it. That was actually in one of the Yao villages and was actually really good. It was also the first time I've used a fork in what seems like ages. Today we're back in Guilin, the trip from PingAn was extremely easy and we're staying in the same hostel we stayed in the first time we came through here. It is a fairly big place and a traveling hub, kind of a shock in a way after spending nights in these villages where everything closes down when it gets dark and you have to walk down a stone staircase for like a mile before you get to the base of a hill which isn't even really the base of a hill and where you can't really get anywhere anyway so you shouldn't have wasted battery time on your flashlight if you're lucky enough to have one in the first place. Tomorrow we'll be heading in the direction of Kunming, the capital of Yunnan, the southwesternmost province of China. I won't bore you with the travel details, but we'll be stopping a bit in Guizhou on the way and possibly visiting this giant waterfall which will hopefully have some water since it is now the dry season and apparently the non-optimal time to visit it. It's on the way, so what can it hurt?
Hopefully next time I update I will have sorted out the pictures. Hope all are well!
All traffic signs and regulations are merely suggestions at best here. I have had several occasions to be on buses the last few days, and numerous occasions before that, and the drivers are clearly insane. It's best not to look through the front window, though I can't help myself often enough. The driver rides fairly regularly in the oncoming lane of traffic, regardless of whether there is in fact oncoming traffic or not. He will speed up to pass a few cars and the people, motorcycles, other buses, or cows will also speed up and somehow nobody gets killed, so far at least. Also interesting is that none of the Chinese people seem nervous about it in the least. I think today the bus driver passed somebody in the oncoming lane who was also passing somebody in the oncoming lane, while like 5 motorcycles and a bus shot by in the oncoming shoulder. I just cover my eyes now and try to enjoy the scenery out the side window instead of the front.
So we spent a whole bunch of time in Yangshuo. I wrote about it a bit I believe. I spent several days trying to recover and had some great food despite that whole condition, and then we went biking again our last day out into the villages which was great. We rode to an ancient bridge and had lunch at a local's house in a village called Yulong Cun, right near the bridge looking out at the Yulong river as chickens and children ran amuck. Lots of dogs too, apparently the leash laws aren't as stringent in rural Guangxi as they are in Manhattan. That day we took a few courageous turns and ended up in fields of crops walking our bikes on paths too small to ride without falling off the side into hay or mud or corn or whatever else it is they grow out there. The scenery was as usual amazing, I will sort out the pictures soon. By the way, a lot of Chinese toddlers where pants with no butt on them, kind of like Prince did at that one awards show. Was that in college? Man, I feel old sometimes.
So we took a bus after a week in Yangshuo to a place called Dazhai, a village among the Longji rice terraces. Longji is a giant area with steep hills that look like giant stairs covered with rice plants, or at this particular time, recently harvested rice plants. The scenery is amazing and the villages get some tours during the day, but it doesn't take much at all to get away from the tourists because there are a zillion stairs and no other way to get up there and most tourists aren't too interested in that. We stayed the night in Dazhai and then hiked four hours to another village called Pingan. There's so many details of these places, it's hard to remember everything now. The villages are inhabited by ethnic minority groups within China, in the case of Dazhai the Yao minority and in the case of Pingan and a few small surrounding villages, the Zhuang minority. Some of you will be happy to hear that there is also a Dong minority group in the region. They each have their own language which sounds to me to be a dialect of Mandarin, but that's a wild guess based on listening to them speak it for a few days. I'm sure wikipedia would shed more light on this if I could reach it. The women of the Yao minority don't cut their hair from the time they are married, so they all have really, really long hair which they wrap up elaborately into a turban-like shape and then offer to show tourists for a cool 5RMB if you are lucky. They also relentlessly hound the tourists to buy various handicrafts and once again, no is an unacceptable answer. We continue to politely refuse various requests but have slowly built a catalog of the most irritating offers in different places. They mean well generally speaking or are just looking to make a buck, but I am so tired of hearing "LOOKY!" "BAMBOO!?" "MASSAGEY?" and "POST-A-CARD?" I can't even tell you. Bamboo is a ride on a bamboo ride by the way, and people will run at you from the fields to make sure you realize they do indeed also have a bamboo raft they'd be happy to take you on at any time that happens to be convenient. Anyway, the people who live in these places are kind of amazing. There are giant wooden houses on the side of these mountains and they have carried every single piece of building material up here on their backs. It was a common sight to see what was apparently a 150 year old woman with a bamboo stick over one shoulder, and on each end of bamboo a giant bale of wood or some other crazy supply. Other common cargo included giant logs over the shoulder, or a crossbeam with two giant buckets filled with rocks or something else that looked really painful to trudge up, but they do it every single day. Tellingly, they don't seem to smoke in these villages quite as much as they do in the flatter parts of China, at least as far as I could tell.
So we spent two nights in these remote villages in rooms that resembled places I lived in summer camp. The food was good and in the last few weeks has evolved to be no problem whatsoever. I'm pretty comfortable ordering in Chinese now without a menu, just explaining what we want and they are only too happy to provide it. We've had great noodles, soups, some unusual and tasty vegetables, and then in one place they had a burrito and we couldn't resist trying it. That was actually in one of the Yao villages and was actually really good. It was also the first time I've used a fork in what seems like ages. Today we're back in Guilin, the trip from PingAn was extremely easy and we're staying in the same hostel we stayed in the first time we came through here. It is a fairly big place and a traveling hub, kind of a shock in a way after spending nights in these villages where everything closes down when it gets dark and you have to walk down a stone staircase for like a mile before you get to the base of a hill which isn't even really the base of a hill and where you can't really get anywhere anyway so you shouldn't have wasted battery time on your flashlight if you're lucky enough to have one in the first place. Tomorrow we'll be heading in the direction of Kunming, the capital of Yunnan, the southwesternmost province of China. I won't bore you with the travel details, but we'll be stopping a bit in Guizhou on the way and possibly visiting this giant waterfall which will hopefully have some water since it is now the dry season and apparently the non-optimal time to visit it. It's on the way, so what can it hurt?
Hopefully next time I update I will have sorted out the pictures. Hope all are well!
posted by Dan at 6:06 AM
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