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Ni Hao!
Greetings from China. As you may remember, at the end of the last blog post we were about to meet our China tour group... done. Sadly there were no strapping Norweigans, the closest we came was a German called Gitte. In fact the only other two adventurers in the group were a couple of middle-aged Australian sheilas. In total, there were six of us, including 'Wendy' our Chinese tour guide (Wendy's her stage name, as no Westerners can pronounce her real name!).
Our journey commenced in beautiful Halong Bay in North Vietnam, where we boarded a private traditional junk boat and set sail to cruise among some of the two thousand limestone peaks. We stopped off in the most impressive cave system we've ever seen - Wookey Hole is more of a mouse hole in comparison, and also took a dip in the South China sea, which proved to be full of jelly fish as Carly can testify. The evening was spent sipping cold beers on the bow of the boat, soaking up the scenery, and getting to know our group. During dinner we listened to Wendy talk about our forthcoming time in China, and she somehow pursuaded Al to eat a fish eye - which he almost enjoyed!
We weren't too disheartened to wave farewell to Vietnam, although we will miss random men trying to pursuade Al to mount their motorbike by hollering 'Easy rider?'...
After a successful and terror free border crossing, our first stop in China was the Butterfly Valley in Hua Shan. The countryside was staggering with so many mountain peaks it felt like you were seeing double, and the deepest green we've seen. Our preconception of China beforehand was polluted, busy cities - a concrete jungle, we'd never given any thought to the countryside. The farmers in this area still use buffalo to plough the rice fields, it really felt like we'd stepped back in time. They also don't get many foreigners so we also caused quite a stir amoungst the locals. Wendy also introduced us to the national game 'Mahjong' which you'll all be subjected too when we return - something to look forward to.
We spent the night in the business mecca of Liuzhou to break up the travelling, here we tried stinky tofu (essentially mouldy tofu - but tastes better than the 'normal' tofu) and Carly got stuck in with some impromptu street dancing in the park.
Chengyang is home to the Dong nationality and undoubtedly one of the most special places in China, because of its Wind and Rain Bridge which was built without a single nail and sticky rice as cement over 100 years ago. We stayed in a really old wooden guesthouse in a village that is the epitome of a traditional Chinese village. Chengyang also provided us with 'Uncle Wu' who didn't speak a single word of English, but had more charisma than Elvis (and looked a little like him too). He liked to speak at a deafening volume, was plagued by unpredictable head movements and was constantly drunk on wax berry wine. Uncle Wu - we miss you. Chengyang is also home to the loudest roosters of all time; who don't just crow in the morning, they're crowing all the live long day and night. Carly actually gave up vegetarianism to launch a hate campaign against these sleep depriving b******s.
We won't call this a highlight, but a stand out moment of our time there featured us attempting to devour a Century Egg. This is a chicken or duck egg which has been buried under the ground for a long long time, (we're talking months) so much so that the egg white turns into a black translucent jelly and the egg yolk is transformed into a creamy gooey green/grey mess that smells of amonia. The Chinese love this: Al bravely swallowed two bites, while Carly couldn't cope with the texture and threw up in her mouth.
After an amusing public bus ride, which felt like a London tube carriage at rush hour, we arrived at perhaps the most beautiful place we've visited so far - the Longji Rice Terraces (if ever there was a time to open up a new browser and google image something... it's now people). This man-made wonder is 600 years old and was amazingly created using just basic hand tools. The Yao women who live here are fascinating because they cut their hair only once in their lifetime at age 18. Many have tresses that stretch past their ankles and all are very proud of their roots... ahem. We met some Yao women during a 4 hour trek to our second nights accommodation in a neighbouring village, which was the best way to soak up the magical scenery.
Our last destination before Hong Kong was Yangshuo... where a lot went down, including:
- A great bike ride to the fampus Moon Mountain and the Li River
- We dabbled in Chinese healing by receiving a reflexology session and a painful dose of hot cupping. The cupping resulted in some very disturbing black and red bruises which are still present (6 days after but thankfully now fading). Well, we did say we would try to experience everything!
- Had a T'ai Chi lesson by the Li River. T'ai Chi is quite addictive and seems surprisingly practical, plus its reportedly the key to a long life with good balance. Who's with us?
China as a whole is notorious for two things: smoking and spitting, and often at the same time. While we could generally handle this outside, we found one gentleman who insisted on spitting on the floor within the restaurtant, mid meal. Not cool. It's actually illegal to spit, but this is not enforced and doesn't put anybody off.
Our time in China ended in an exciting way as we experienced our first sleeper train. Owing to our youth, agility, and some would say ravishing looks, we were each assigned the top bunk out of a tier of three. It was a great experience and featured some good people watching. This editions fun fact: at any one time, over 10million people in China are travelling by train. Boom.
China took us by surprise, and we enjoyed it far more than we thought we would. There's a lot that's diffuclt to deal with here of course, but what we saw on this trip showed us a different China to our preconceptions. A big part of this has to down to Wendy (our guide) who made us laugh every time she spoke (unintentionally) and was always on hand to feed us not only food, but China-isms.
The food has been outstanding, with not a sweet and sour chicken ball in sight, and a wide variety of dishes. We're even slightly addicted to a Chinese breakfast of steamed buns and noodles... although they can keep the egg soup and rice gruel.
This doesn't really fit in with the blog... but we'd like to share this with you. The kids here don't wear nappies. Instead, at four months old, toilet training begins by the parents teaching their kid (one child rule and all that) 'to go' by whistling at them. Nappies are replaced with shorts equipped with a split from front to back for easy depositing. It was quite a shock see this for the first time, but we're actually in full support and are quite impressed with the system. However, there was an occassion where a kid pooped in a hat at a bus station... plain old distrubing.
You'll all be thrilled to know the next post is just days away as we're planning on updating before we leave Hong Kong, there should be some more pictures too.
We were shocked and saddened by the news of the riots in the UK and hope no one was directly affected. It felt strange to be so far away when all the madness was happening, but we were thinking of you all.
Love to all
xx
- comments
Sar All sounds like good fun... and what a thought provoking toilet technique. Riots have calmed down now, i managed to pick up a cool pair of trainers and some blue ink grey tracky bottoms so all good, all whilst holding my special brew. Keep safe and keep enjoying, lots of love xxx
Mum and Dad Vinny Sounds like you have packed a lot in as usual and have made us laugh again with your brilliant blog. We have just ordered 2 x no.42, 1 no. 25, 1 no. 38 and 3 x no. 22 b from the local... yummy ( 2 century eggs, with rice gruel, fish eyes in egg soup, mouldy tofu and one of those roosters, yum yum. we'll save some for you especially the thousand year eggs. We thought we might have had a bit of rioting here actually, but it turned out to be some bloke staggering home from the Rose and Thistle who got lost down St catherines Road crying out for his Mum. Tilly and Alfie had a riot of their own in the garden...We love you both and can't wait to have you home. Forgotten what you both look like actually!! All our love xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Ruth Hey guys, Sorry it's been a while! Hope you are both ok and still loving life out there, you will be home soon in lovely, boring old Frimley where nothing has changed, I'm still unemployed but now on job seekers allowence (yep...one of them now!), dogs are still mental and thats about it. All fine here, loved reading this one can't believe what you have eaten ew! I actually laughed out loud when you said Carly puked in her mouth, classic! Can't wait to have you home now, it's only round the corner so make the most of it, which i'm sure you will! Love you both, keep safe. Ruth xxxxx
Tim I want to meet 'Gitte'......"hey easy rider" to Al has actually made me cry with laughter! I can just imagine his face looking up whilst eating his sarnie ha ha ha! x