The Real China at Last

Monday 28 August

As I have mentioned previously, we were to have a leisurely day today. The girl in Reception yesterday said she would take us to breakfast, any time after 08.00. So we ambled down the eight flights of stairs about 08.30 and asked for directions. We were given a voucher and told food would be served at the China Café (how imaginative) at the top corner of West Street, about 100 yards away. Walking up the street, it was deserted – very different from last night when the crowded bars spilled out over the street, their music vibrating from every direction – some old classics, others belting rock and roll. Now everyone appeared to be sleeping it off.

In the Café there was a party of Australians, halfway through their fry-up and a young Chinese girl, eating banana pancake (which looked delicious) but she kept looking at her watch and in the end couldn’t finish her meal – on her way to work, I suppose. We sat down and were each offered a bowl of natural yogurt (I didn’t take mine) and some orange juice. We ordered jasmine tea, which promptly arrived in a large mug full of floating flowers. I asked if I could have a pancake, but was told my breakfast had already been ordered! Shame – but there’s always tomorrow. They brought us two fried eggs – cooked over easy, how did they know that’s the only way I like them – bacon, hash brown with tomato and cucumber garnish, and two slices of toast and one portion of butter – lucky I don’t usually eat butter, so Colin could have mine.. Needing some exercise after all this food, we decided to wander the streets and explore Yangshuo some more. We started off down by the river where we had arrived yesterday. The market traders were just setting up their stalls – its about 09.30 by this time – but hardly anyone else was around. We stood and watched over the wall for quite a while, as several women were doing their washing in the river – some had soap in a plastic bottle and a crude type of scrubbing brush to clean their clothes, while others just dunked their clothes in the river and pounded them on the pavement, until they were clean. They then rinsed them in the river again, put them in a bucket and walked off home. It was just a normal Monday morning washday for them.

A little further along the river we came across an exercise area – crude metal machines painted yellow and bright blue, being used by what looked like elderly Chinese women – a running machine, an exercise bike-cum-rower, a twister, a stepper and a contraption that looked like two long poles with metal trays for your feet – you then swung each leg forward in back like giant steps – straightening your legs to reach out front and back as high as possible – Colin would have benefited from one of these when doing his hip exercises a few months ago – perhaps we should have a set of these in the garden – might encourage me to exercise more – eeerrrrr , it would probably end up a five minute wonder like the Gym,. But I had a go on most of them here, just to see how they worked.

By now we were near the outskirts of the town, so we walked up several side streets to find the vegetable market. This was bustling – people eagerly displaying all sorts of fruit and vegetables, some I have never seen in England – Taro being one of them –when its growing it has very large nasturtium type leaves on long stems, but you eat the root, a big round dark brown globe, that looks a bit like a cross between a rough skinned celeriac and a swede. As it happens, later in the day, Jeremy bought me one to try – when it was cut open it was white with purple streaks inside and very dry to taste - a bit like an overcooked roast chestnut, powdery. It has a strange flavour which tastes like nothing I’ve eaten before - aain a bit like the chestnut, but with something else in the background that I couldn’t define. I didn’t like it, so he took it home. But there were plenty of other weird fruits and vegetables on show on stalls set out in the middle of the road. Flowers too, but I think they were bought for cooking, not to admire in a vase.

The town was beginning to come to life now – the traffic increased with lots of cars and motorcycles presumably taking people to work, and tourists hiring bicycles as this is a popular way to see this area. Shops were opening and setting out their goods along the pavements. Many of the restaurants were already open as they serve breakfasts – usually a version of the traditional English fare – but other eateries, selling take away food, were lighting their stoves and preparing their foodstuffs for later in the day.

We walked back round to the main high street and on to the hotel, where we took a break, doing emails, writing blogs and Colin – still feeling weary – had a bit of a rest.

Around lunchtime, we decided we needed to cash some more travelers cheques, to pay for dinner tonight, and lunch tomorrow before we go to the airport, and Jeremy and the driver’s tips (the itinerary suggests 10 pounds GBP per day for the guide – three days – that’s 400 yuan and 200 yuan for the driver – I know Dave will think we’re barmy, but its what the information pack says is expected. We had each put in 50 pounds GBP for tips for the tour from Beijing to Shanghai and it had been much easier than everyone tipping individually),. The bank wasn’t as bad as at St Petersburg, but was very precise over the form filling, and I felt I was signing my life away – why is it that some places there’s no problem changing money and others just make difficulties for themselves. Anyway, they paid up eventually, so we were solvent again.

It was nearly lunch time by now, so we strolled up and down West Street again, to find a suitable venue. Colin is suffering a bit at the moment and on the immodium, so he didn’t want much and ended up with a banana milk shake. I had a sarnie and a beer.

We met Jeremy at 14.00 at the hotel, complete with driver, and he took us around the local area, stopping off to explore some real Chinese villages, with their diverse range of houses – from the old wooden shacks, almost falling down, to the new brick and tile houses, that look quite smart from the outside. But glancing in through the open doors and windows, they are both much the same inside – bare, dark, only a few pieces of furniture and a television. They look dirty too, but that may be just an impression because they are so dark. These villages are the exact opposite to the large cities in that the ground around the houses is strewn with debris and litter, while the streets in the city are constantly being cleaned. There is no graffiti here, only the remnants of some signs painted on the walls from the days of Chairman Mao. There are the usual few shops in front rooms or in tents on street corners, and at one point, some little old lady came running out of her front garden (it was quite a posh house) and followed us for at least a quarter of an hour as we roamed through her village, trying to sell us postcards, back scratchers, small Buddhas, and getting no positive results, ended up by giving me a handful of the jute she had been drying at home.

We saw a very primitive, but very effective irrigation system to keep the paddy fields watered – water swirled into a stream from the river and was caught in a couple of concrete whirlpools, which forced the water upwards through narrow rusty pipes, about ten feet high, to the irrigation channels – not being a techy, there is probably more to this, but it seemed extremely clever, if very basic, to me. The river here was a tributary of the Lijiang River we were on yesterday, and the setting was idyllic – green fields, with a few water buffalo munching away on some grass, a weir cascading white water down the river, and large pointy mountains in the background. It was so peaceful. We saw several of the large butterflies again, some striped brown and white, some inky black with a sapphire blue blobs on each of its wings. They are about the size of my hand when flying around. We still haven’t seen a lot of birds, but we heard several different varieties today, both in Yangshuo and out in the country, chirping merrily away in the trees.

After the villages, we stopped in the rice fields to see a demonstration of a water buffalo tilling the land. It walks around, ankle – should that been hoof – deep in water, pulling a plough type device that turns the ground over. Its all very muddy. The driver is able to squat on the top of the device, so as not to get his feet wet.

We then went on to see the Moon Rock – a large hole in one of the mountain peaks, that, due to the position of he mountain peak in front, looks like a crescent moon from one particular angle. A village has grown up around the viewing site to cater for the tourists that now come here and see it.

Our next stop was further along the tributary river – this time to have a ride on a bamboo raft – getting in practice for Thailand. A young lad had a long bamboo pole to punt us around on a large square raft, with a little house and seats on it. The water was warm (of course I had to paddle my toes), and the river full of tourists having a rides – at one point it was a bit like Piccadilly Circus in the rush hour. Before we got on the raft, some small boys tried to sell us some long plastic tubes that looked like bicycle pumps, but we declined. Later we saw these poles in action – they were water pistols, - you filled them up from the river and pumped out jet sprays of water at another raft. They looked great fun and Sandy, Adam and Alex would have loved them.

Further downstream, a man was using cormorants to catch fish – carp again, I think – the birds had a necklace round their necks to prevent them swallowing the fish and they had been trained to return to the raft when they caught a fish. It seemed a bit cruel to me, but the birds sat serenely on a log on the raft, just popping into the water now and again to dive and return with a fish. It was obviously an effective way to catch the fish, that were then either sold, or put into the fishpools nearby for farming.

I had a go at punting the raft – the pole was about twice the height of me and you had to keep it in a small hole in the middle of the front section of the raft and push down as hard as you could as well as guide it to the left or right to steer. I think I did a good job, but the three males just smiled smugly. Later we saw someone else having a go, and he nearly caused a major traffic jam on the river.

We then drove back to the hotel, to cool down once again. The day had started very misty, but by lunch time, the sun had burned off the fog and the day was yet again hot and very humid. I did a few more emails and posted a couple of blogs while Colin listened to Sherlock Holmes.

Around 17.00 we wandered back round the town, taking piccys as a reminder of our time here. I am sure everyone on our tour last week would have loved the scenery and atmosphere of this area – so relaxed and easy going compared with the rat race of the cities - the food and the people who are so friendly – I am so glad we decided to come here. (They may not have been too keen on the hotel, but after all we are only sleeping here and using it as a base.) We found a quite sophisticated restaurant to eat in tonight, called “Café Del Moon”. We sat on the balcony, under some fans, and watched the people wandering by, listening to the snatches of their chatter in lots of languages and with music in the background. We saw the sky turn from bright blue to indigo, to inky black – there were no stars which surprised me. On walking back to the hotel, lots of the shop workers put folding chairs along the centre of the street, so they can all chat to each other, (some even seem to be asleep), but are ready to serve any customers instantly. Its probably the best time to browse as they are not on your back trying to get you to buy.

This town is a cross between Chaweng and Bophut, on Koh Samui - not quite so large or glitzy as Chaweng, but just as buzzy, and bigger than Bophut, but with that same alluring atmosphere and charm. It makes you want to stay and be part of it for longer.

We have to leave here tomorrow for Hong Kong, but these last couple of days have definitely been one of the highlights of the tour so far for me.