At 4am, I lay awake in bed wondering what on earth posesses these wonderful people to get up early and set fire to what must be the largest and loudest firecrackers in the world! Is it a sense of naughtiness, of fun or possibly a way to get rid of tourists from their magical world? I almost fell back to sleep before it happened again and then again. I was at the point of hiding my head under the pillow when the dragon drumming started, the firecrackers reached a crescendo and I couldn't stop myself from giggling. Breakfast time.
Downstairs, our breakfast magically appeared, the same delicious offering as yesterday, a plate of cakes, two fried eggs and today's addition of sweet, brown steamed bread.
Since Stephen's uncle had been unable to get us any train tickets back to Guangzhou, a new plan was hatched. We were to hire Mr Oo for the day; this is starting to sound very Terry Pratchett... Mr Oo would take us on a trip around some of the other tulou villages and then whisk us to Meizhou, some three hours away, from where we could get a coach back to Guangzhou!
We paid our bill, had our photo taken with Stephen and his mother and then started our guided tour!
And we were off..... Although Mr Ooo obviously didn't think he was a formula one racing driver, he did think that honking his horn at least four times every time he saw another vehicle, or every time he neared a bend in the road, was the done thing! And readers, please understand that the roads were very, very busy!
We visited:- Chengqi Lou, an enormous tulou surrounded by tour guides, where we took pictures. Next stop was
Xiaban village which included stepping stones over the river, a beautiful little temple and a stage where children were learning drumming skills. Then
Yuchang earth building - a big tulou with lots of stalls.... we were beginning to feel like American tourists! Not a lot of heart on this tour, thank goodness we had spent yesterday feeling the village that we stayed in; I hope this isn't what this area will become in the future.
The weather was grey and drizzly, the clouds were swirling over the nearby hills, the atmosphere was moody! The first day of wet weather we have had so far! Lucky girls!!
We visited a viewing point for a huddle of tulous in a valley but couldn't actually see them, occasionally they appeared as ghostly flying saucers in the heavy mist. We then visited the said round tulous on mountain, which included Zhenchang Lou and
Ruiyan Lou, amongst the cherry blossom.
We stopped for lunch back near Chengqi Lou, where we were hustled into a little back street restaurant. Susie was very proud of herself for somehow remembering how to order pork noodles and chilli, and even better, they understood her!!
Then it was off to Meizhou, a bumpy drive over half finished roads; sights included trucks covered in flowers (something to do with New Year?), two enormous river dams, paddy fields and tumbledown villages clinging to the sides of forested hills. As we entered Guangdong province, the surroundings became increasingly industrial and we saw huge grey soviet style factories.
Finally, Mr Oo delivered us to Meizhou, the land of the moped and got us a bus ticket to Guangzhou. With 4 hours to spare, we wandered through the grey town and through a pretty little park with bridges and lakes.
We found a restaurant which looked ok and we were shown to a private room upstairs - we sat down at the mahjong table as we thought it was smaller!!!! Eight people then tried to take our order... Rather embarrassing. Lovely food, although we felt like we were baby tigers at the zoo as our waiting staff kept peering in the door and giggling. It took some time to leave as we had to have a selection of photos taken and then ensued a lengthy (one sided) conversation, which, it transpired, was about whether we wanted a receipt, once the fifteen year old lad had again been dragged upstairs to translate!!
The 20.20 bus was the lap of luxury compared to the train. Air conditioned, spacious reclining seats and free water!! Apart from a rather alarming emergency stop just after we got on the 'motorway', the journey back was uneventful. I (Sooze) rather incongruously listened to some BBC podcasts featuring Terry Wogan and Sandi Toksvig. After a wee bit of tit-for-tat pushing in the taxi queue, we were then brought directly back to the English School for a 2am cuppa and catch-up with the birthday girl!