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Fenghuang and Dehang
As I had mentioned in an earlier blog, I was fortunate enough to have bought my ticket for Jizhou (nearest big town to Fenghuang) back in Kunming, what I didn't mention was that my train arrived at 2.30am and I had a 4 hour wait until the buses started running to Fenghuang. Chinese people must like me! whilst I was waiting for my bus, a student, from one of local towns on his way home for a few days from Yunnan Uni asked whether he could sit with me and have a chat so that he could practice his english with me, it certainly helped pass the time. I discovered that his English teacher was from Belguim so he had a bit of trouble understanding my 'proper english pronounciation' talking of people from the UK, I actually haven't come accross many in China, well I can count the number on one hand!
6.30 arrived I said my goodbyes and got on the bus to Fenghuang, I didn't have any accomodaion booked but was lucky in that a woman from a local gueshouse was at the bridge touting for buisness, I got a myself a good deal on a room (I was too tired to shop around) and had a good old rest before exploring the old town area of Fenghuang. During the day (well whilst I was there first - more about that later) the old town is really quiet and its great just to wander around the streets, walk along the river and window shop, however in the evening the masses decend and the streets are crammed woth tourists (mainly Chinese, again I don't think I saw any other westerners whilst I was there). The bars also get pretty lively too with a mixture of 'entertainment" and "clappers' on hand so that you don't have to worry about making your hands saw with clapping the entertainment on offer!
I initially spent two nights in Fenghuang then moved on to a small village about 3 hours away called Dehang. My plan was to spend two nights there, do some trekking and enjoy the local village life. Well, just my luck the heavens opened up when I arrived and I don't think it stopped raining for the two nights I was there. The village is lovely, very peaceful and there is not really much to do in the evenings as everything seems to shut when it gets dark, again I must have been the only westerner in the village and there were hardly any other tourists around either. I decided to try and trek along the main pathway from the village in to the more scenic areas, it wasn't really a great idea, despite the great views, the rain just didn't stop and so the pathway just got more and more slippery, particulary when it got closer to the river. After a couple of hours and a few slips and a fall I decided it wasn't worth risking a broken arm or leg so turned back to the village. I really liked Dehang, it is a lovely tranquil place despite all the rain and the constant stream of people wanting to take my picture, its also a great place just to chill out away from the larger cities and towns.
The next stage of my great plan to get to Hong Kong in time for my flight back to the UK was to catch a bus to Jizhou then book myself a bus ticket to Sanjang so that I could go to the Rice Terraces. It turns out that when I booked my ticket; (a) I didn't know that there was another town called Jizhou and (b) I should have realised when the woman at the bus station only charged me 14RMB for what should have been a 9-10 hour bus ride. Yes you guessed it, I ended up on a magical mystery tour around Hunan for 2 and a half hours on a local bus on some very dodgy roads amd ended up at a place called Sanjiangmiazhai. In my defence the chinese symbols look very similar. The bus driver and conductor laughed at me then helped me and explained that my best option was to catch a bus back to Fenghuang and go to Sanjang from there. Well on the bus back to Fenghuang the whole bus knew what had happened had a good old laugh at me as one of the women decided to tell everyone whoi had got on the bus what had happened to me. It wasn't an entirely lost cause as I got to see more towns and villages that I would not have seen otherrwise.
Back at Fenghuang bus station the one of the guys working at the ticket office explained how to get to Guilin via Huahia the following day (I had decided to try and get to the Rice Terraces from Guilin instead). It was going to take me around 15 hours by bus, including 12 hours on a Chinese sleeper bus. All I can say is that just journey was quite possibly one of the worst bus rides ever! not only was the 'bed' not long enough for me, I was stuck infront of the TV screen where the driver decided to show the best of chinese comedy over the last 30 years' instead of the ususal chinese films that are usually quite good oh and we also got a burst tire in the middle of the night so spent quite a while at a service station in the middle of the night being kept awake by a mechanic fixing said tires.
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