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| We zigzag our way through the streets, the only traffic being farmers to and thro with livestock for the early market. They mostly ride either two or three wheeled bikes, stacked impossibly high with crops, chickens and ducks in baskets and bags of rice. Soon, we pull up in a backstreet, but the driver performs a complicated manoeuvre, backing right up to the door, so close I am nearly already inside the reception area. Straight away, I sense not all is well. I have been had!
Sure enough, the man appears again. “Hulloh, here is international hostel very good you stay”. He tries to convey me to the desk before I have to time to think, but in a flash, I am outside inspecting the frontage. “So where is the HI sign”? I enquire. “It up there, see”? He directs my sight to three tiny stick on letters, wonkily reading ‘YHA’. “This is not the Hostel International, is it” I complain, “You have brought me to the wrong place”. He tries his very hardest to convince me this is the one. I demand to see some form of official endorsement, and he shows me a tattered old poster with the familiar YHA logo – it wasn’t enough for me. Back outside, he has the cheek to demand the five Yuan for my tuk tuk ride, to which I stubbornly refuse. Unusually for this part of the world, he became quite aggressive; with nothing more to be said on the matter, I walked away angry at his dishonest attempt to lure me in, but quietly happy that I was not stupid enough to fall for it. Dealing with touts is an everyday part of life here. Sometimes it grows tiresome, but usually it is all a bit of fun. When you say no, they normally clear off. They are only trying to make a living, after all, and I really do not mind. However, I do when, like in this situation, they take you to entirely the wrong place and try to fool you into buying something you have already stated you do not want. |
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| Journal - |
| November 17 th, 2006 > hippies/rice/hills |
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| “Hulloh – wheh you stay”? The man was pulling at my shirtsleeve, even before I had recovered my pack out of the grimy baggage hold of the bus. I had just completed the hour-long trip from Guilin, from where I had this morning, very early, arrived by train. I like getting in at 5am; I feel it gives me the upper hand, a head start on the day. I am under no pressure to find a bed or onward transport, and can confidently dispatch the touts one by one, to make my own arrangements.
After engaging me in polite conversation, my man gets to the nub of the matter. “My sisser have vely nice hotel, you stay!” I thought things had been going too well. I go to great lengths to explain that, while I would love to stay at his place, I have already decided to stay at the International Hostel, where indeed I was due to meet a very good friend (complete lie, but a useful one). He accepts this explanation gracefully, and we chat some more. I finish my cup of chai and heave my pack on, ready to hit the pavement. “Okeh okeh, long way to hostel, my friend give you lif, tuk tuk” he offers. I ponder this a moment. I am quite a way on the outskirts, not really sure where, and so what the hell – for a mere Y5 why not get a ride? I climb in, thank the man and give myself a little pat on the back for my skilful avoidance of the hotel tout. |
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| So what does it cost in China? |
| The Chinese currency is the Renminbi (RMB). It is divided into ten yuan, which is again divided into ten jiao, the latter having so little value it is rarely used. EXCHANGE RATES GBP 1 - 14.6 RMB USD 1 - 7.9 RMB EUR 1 - 9.8 RMB check latest here Typical daily costs are now around Y20 p/n accommodation. A 630ml bottle of Tsing Tao beer (good) will cost a staggering Y2 (yes, that is true). Bottle of spring water - Y5 Full meal in local eatery Y10 - 20 A local bus ride Y3 Internet use, per hour Y2 I am living well on Y100 per day, obviously this goes up with travel and attractions. |
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| I soon found my intended place, and was incredibly happy to finally have made it to Yangshuo. Five years ago now, during my first ever trip to China, I had missed this place. I had been in Guilin without a guidebook, and having met no other travellers, I simply knew nothing about it.
Apparently, the small town of 40,000 people was a popular hangout for the longhaired and unwashed, following the Hippy Trail through Asia. Today, it is still popular with the modern backpacker, but now also the grey-haired. The European package tour has discovered Yangshuo, and the numerically challenged of all nationalities are there in force. The main drag, known affectionately to the locals as Westerner Street, is a typical tourist street full of hostels and hotels, souvenir shops and restaurants offering a safe tamed-down version of Chinese food. I have no great moral problem with taking advantage of the facilities when available, and settled into a nice evening routine of eating and socialising with other travellers. Thankfully, the real reason for visiting this place remains delightfully unchanged, and unchangeable. Yangshuo is but one small town among a vast area of Karst topography; it is the crazy and weird limestone rock formations that probably kept the hippies going in between hits. It remains a very rural area, dominated by rice production, and a fairytale landscape that has been inspiration to many a Chinese artist and countless coffee-table books. |
| There are a number of well-documented tourist sites and sights to check out, but I had other ideas. Like many, I hired a bike and hit the road, but I did not have to go far to find myself all alone. My planned two days turned into seven, such were the joys of taking off each morning in a different direction, and just seeing what the day would bring. I visited few of the listed “must see” sites; whenever I do, I am often disappointed. It still amazes me how people tend to hug the well-known routes, for on several of my day-trips I saw not a single tourist all day long – but I ain’t complaining! |
| There is not much to write of particular interest; in fact in this journal I am letting the pictures do the talking. But after all the hustle and bustle of central China, Yangshuo would prove the perfect tonic. Lazy rivers and forest haphazardly divide up the flat collage of rice and vegetable fields, all traditional family farms. Like giant natural skyscrapers, the limestone hills pockmark a vast area, each clad in Jurassic-like plants and, along with the early morning mist, lend the landscape a mysterious sense that time has altogether forgotten. |
| One day, using my compass I planned to do a rough ark heading north, then a loop west to return me back into town later on. I had no map, just a blind faith that the network of tracks the locals use would get me where I wanted to go. I bumped my way along, through random farms and villages, sometimes unsure of how welcome I would be, and so going slowly and carefully. Wary of walking on their fields, I followed only tracks, often reduced to the width of my bicycle. I climbed up into forest, descended to valley bottoms and crossed crystal clear (surely a rare thing in this country) streams. The few people I met along the way were unanimously friendly, all stopping to have a good look, and we always shared a few hellos and some polite arm waving. A man tending to his orange trees invited me to taste one (bitter, not quite ready) and insisted I take a photo – not of him or the orchard, just an orange. Though when fiddling with my camera, he inadvertently took a great portrait of himself! Men and women moved their animals, and I moved by bike, along the narrow network of pathways that connect this seemingly unorganised jumble of fields. |
| On my final night, I succumbed to the tourist masses, with an evening of Cormorant fishing. The traditional skill of using trained birds to catch fish is no longer practiced regularly; although I had seen the occasional old man floating around on the river with a bird or two, if I wanted a decent look an organised trip was the only way to go. This basically consisted of being packed onto a long riverboat, along with a dozen rather overweight folk in their twilight years, cruising upstream as another boat alongside worked the birds. A rickety home made light bulb dangled from the bow of the fishing craft, while around ten cormorants did their stuff ahead of the boat in the field of light. Their wings are brailed, and the fisherman, while steering with his foot, keenly watches the birds. When they catch, he unceremoniously hooks them out with a gaff and throttles them until they give up their hard-won meal into a waiting basket. Their long necks are tied loosely with string, in such a way that they can swallow tiny fish but not the larger ones. It is probably the most entertaining part actually, the battle between the bird who justly deserves to keep its fish, and the man who wants them for himself. |
| The traditional art of catching ones dinner, using the fishing skills of a bird, goes back to the mists of time in this area. Birds, mostly quite a stubborn bunch, are not normally given to working so hard for their human masters. Clearly, someone must have come up with the idea, and persevered with the training, but since that time, young birds simply learn from the older ones. And so it continues, though today due to dwindling numbers of fish and possibly an easier life, few people do it to earn a crust.
I was reluctant to leave Yangshuo, but if I ever want to get home, eventually there comes a time when I have to get a move along. I remember seeing a picture in a travel mag, quite a few years ago now, of brilliant green rice terraces reaching to impossible heights. I recall how I scanned that picture so closely, certain there must be evidence of its manipulation on a computer to create such a startling landscape; I never did find out where that place was. But now I know – because I have been there! A leaflet I found in my hostel carried the exact same picture, and that instant there was no question of my next stop – Long Ji. My roommate, David from Italy, was happy to come along for the ride, and I was pleased to have the company. |
| Long Ji rice terrace It took most of a day to reach the remote village of Huangluo, nestling in the bottom of a valley alongside a spate river. Using a multitude of buses, growing smaller and more rickety each time in unison with the roads, we dodged wandering cattle and picked up locals carrying produce and chickens. It was too late to find a bus to Ping’an, our proposed destination, but according to our information, it was a mere half-hour walk from Huangluo – a snip for a fine specimen such as myself. |
| As it would turn out, the crucial point we had missed, the track would ascend at a steady forty-five degrees, and climb over six hundred metres. A bit of a pain, when the temperature is in the high twenties and you have around 18kg of pack on your back. Like any stubborn bloke, we both pushed on, marvelling at the view but relieved to reach the top road in around one hour. |
| The six hundred year old village of Ping’an is a tiny Zhuang settlement, one of many small villages that are home to a colourful mixture of Dong, Zhuang, Yao and Miao minority cultures. It clings precariously to the hillside, and exists solely as a base for those working the fertile lands of the surrounding area. Before long, we were sat on the decking of a traditional wooden building, having found some excellent accommodation, sipping a cold (well-earned) beer, masters of all around us. After weeks of travel in this predominantly noisy country, this is the quietest place I have yet, or since, experienced, in China. |
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| A typical day begun with a ride in the dark, to catch the sunrise over the hills somewhere, anywhere. I would then follow a random track through the fields to watch the folk cutting their rice. This is all done by hand, sometimes alone and occasionally five or more people. The golden stalks are tied into stooks, and when dry are fed into a manually operated threshing machine to separate the rice from the plant. The uncleaned grains gather at the rear of the very basic contraption, from where it is bagged into fifty-kilo sacks and carried to the cart. Some folk tie the left over straw into bundles to carry away, others pile into neat little stacks with a kind of thatched lid to protect it from the elements. To a country boy a long way from home, the idyllic scene is both comforting and frustrating. Comforting, because of the familiar smells and noises in the fields, frustrating because I am not part of it and cannot talk to these people about the weather, or the price of straw. To them, I am just another strange looking person, probably from a city a long way away; a guy with silly sunglasses, too much money and time on his hands. I wish I had the means, the confidence, to go and help. Besides, a little hard yakka would not go amiss at the moment. |
| That night, several other adventurers had arrived, and we enjoyed a fine meal with plenty of stories from our respective journeys. A cosmopolitan collective included Germans, an American, Israelis, an Italian and even an Iranian.
An early morning exploration of the village revealed beautiful houses, many being restored as a result of the money raised from the increasing (but still, very limited) amount of tourism in the area. The traditional stilted buildings, entirely made from wood, have stabling below for cattle and pigs and any available surface in the sunshine covered in various crops for drying. After a hearty breakfast, we set off up the hillside with a vague plan to hike through the terraces to a nearby village that is home to the Yao people. As it would turn out, at least half the population would find us along the way! A mob of women, dressed in their traditional bright pink clothing and sporting the long hair for which they are famous, soon got busy trying to sell us a range of goodies. We had a lot of fun, and as we tried to continue our hike, it was obvious they were not going to give up easily. |
| Climbing up to over 800 metres, the Long Ji rice terraces are an incredible feat of farm engineering. Over centuries, the narrow fields have been carved out of the mountainside by hand. Viewed from on high, the intricate shapes can be seen as a whole, each terrace fitting in with its neighbour, all following the natural run of the land. It is an overwhelmingly man-made feature, and yet somehow completely in tune with nature. From across a valley, it is possible to see how they have created each terrace with a very slight, barely noticeable slope, to facilitate the flow of water. The accuracy to which they have been cut from the soil is astounding, all with hand tools and the naked eye for guidance. They were located according to the supply of water, the amount of sunshine they receive, and obviously the soil depth and fertility. An ingenious system of channels, or underground pipes made from bamboo, delivers the all-important water to each part. |
| This is not the best time of year to view; the harvest here is more or less complete, the stubbles blackening off and the wild grasses loosing their colour. Nevertheless, each time of year does bring a different experience – sometimes snow in winter, waterlogged terraces in spring and vivid green of growing rice plants in summer. Ultimately of course, leading up to pre-harvest period in September, when the mountainside is bright gold in colour.
It became apparent that the gaggle of longhaired ladies were not simply pursuing us to sell things, they were in actual fact heading home to their village with supplies. They each carried a wicker basket on their back, and were fit enough to run circles around us. After several hours, we reached their village, and they kindly invited us in to eat. It was one of those wholly unplanned and unexpected moments than can really brighten your day. The settlement consisted of just a handful of wooden stilted buildings, through which ran a sparkling stream that was clearly the focal point of the community. Inside, the building is basically one large room with almost no furniture at all. The women soon got busy preparing lunch, cooked over an open fire, and as is normal in China, it was no snack. We enjoyed around eight different dishes, freshly cooked, from rice to meat, tofu and a range of tasty vegetables. We played with the kids, and then listened to the women performing traditional songs. When motioned to return the compliment, our minds went blank. They seemed happy with Yellow Submarine and American Pie, and did not suspect anything wrong with our incomplete rendition of both. |
| Getting out here, for the hiking, the scenery and the friendly, if a little crazy, people, has been one of many highlights in this country. The Yao women in particular, were the happiest group of folk I may have ever met. I will always remember their sincere smiles, the hopeful, expectant eyes that willed me to buy a bangle, their firm grip that prevented one from running away from a potential sale, their stamina and sense of humour, but ultimately just a warm and genuine welcome into their lives for those few hours. |
| Reluctantly as always, it was time to move on again. It took another full day of travel, backtracking to Guilin and then on to Nanning, where I would spend the next few days arranging my Vietnamese visa.
Nanning is, well, just Nanning. It is pleasant enough, neither a bad place nor a good place – you would not normally go there, if it wasn’t close to the border and a convenient place to pick up a visa. I was here five years ago, stuck for five days, and here I am again, nothing to do, but wait. It was only a four-hour train ride to the border, short enough to indulge in one more cheap hard-seat ticket in China, just for old times’ sake. The Peoples Republic of China never fails to stimulate every sense. It fascinates me, it can disgust me. I have dined on first class cuisine, and eaten things I would rather forget about. The growing gap between rich and poor, and the extreme ends of both can and will shock any visitor to the country. I have been elated at the smooth organisation of a trip, and frustrated when occasionally taking half a day to book a single train ticket. I have been impressed by the scale of her cities, and spellbound at the beauty of the landscapes between them. In a single day, I have been annoyed at the apparent rudeness of some folk, and heartened by the kindness and manners of others, relaxed by a quiet river and exhausted by a simple stroll across town. I unwittingly found myself here five years go, in at the deep end on my first big trip. Only scratching the surface of one tiny region, I vowed to come back and learn more. This was it – but having crossed the very heart of the country, both geographically and culturally, I leave through its southwest border feeling more frustrated than ever. There is so much more to explore, a lifetime’s worth I fear, and the more I see, the less I seem to understand. Put simply (for that is what I am best at), this is one incredible country. It has been around a long time, and trust me, you are going to be hearing much more from this part of the world. While it is a country going through breathtaking changes, much remains the same as it always has, and surely will do for some time. So there is no hurry, but some time, go there. |
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| well, I know. But it was called moon hill - and I had the place to myself....sorry if you were eating or something! |
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| Thank you, people of China! |