Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Well people this will be our last report from the land China, and we would like to bring you a kind warning, we call this
What one ought not to do when in China:
One ought not consume large quanteties of local ricevine with the owner of the farmhouse one is staying in.
One ought not try to use the squat-toilet while under the influence of local ricevine. If one must use the facilities, we recomend that one keeps a hand on the wall at all times, in an effort not to fall over.
One ought never consume large quanteties of local ricevine the day befor one is supposed to trek for 3-4 hours through rural China.
This warning was brought to you by the Ekki Ekki Zoom Boing Cooperation.
Now we continue on to our report. Last time we wrote we were still in Yangshou, and we might as well tell you about the last couple of days there, before move on. As you know we went kayaking down the beautiful Li river, okay Tuz did most of the kayaking, while Trine was in charge of picture-taking. It was a great experience, and even though we shared a kayak, and only one of our rowers was mostly inactive, we found our inner Guld firer (ugly danish gold champions in rowing... Wuhu go Aarhus) and left everyone, including the Swedes, in our wake!! We rule. That evening we moved to a guesthouse a couple of kilometers outside Yangshou, and spent the afternoon swimming in the river, before retiering to our room in the hopes of getting a good nights sleep before we had to go on the much feared bike-ride. Those hopes were crushed rather quickly, first by annoying German children and their loud and horrible techno music, and secondly by a dumb and blind rooster, that did not know the difference between night and day, and just kept on calling all night long.
The next day was not that promising either, because the weather decided not to cooperate with us, and it was absolutly pouring all day long, but we did still go on our bikeride.... Or well Tuz did, Trine opted to walk with a couple of others instead. But that was a good thing, because there were some times on the bikeride, that I was sure I was going to either fall of and crack my head open on a huge rock, or drown in one of the gigantic mudpuddle-river-thingies we had to cross. But all in all it was a lot of fun, even though my gears did not work, so I could barely peddel myself up the hills we had to go up. But the lunch we had in a local farmers house made up for it so it was okay. The walk was good too. we learnt about the lokal plants and farming from our little lokal guide. halfway there we got sick of the rain and took an overfilled bus to the farmhouse, we got there just as the others where leaving but there was still loads of food left. we decided it would probably benefit us all best if we took a cab home - we wouldnt complain and the guide wouldnt have to listen to us complaining.
The next day we set out for the Longji Valley, a beautiful mountain "naturepark", actually it is a huge complex of ricefields up in the mountains, but anyway we were to embark on our first 2 day trek across the beutiful countryside. It was an amazing couple of days, people were really friendly, and the landscape was absolutly amazing. Really words cant describe it. We had great weather, but it was very cold at night, and for some reason chinese do not belive in heating systems... But hey cant have everything. We were in Longji for a total of 3 days, and we spent our days trekking from one village to another. On the last day we wandered down the mountain to catch our transportation to Hong Kong.
We arrived in Hong Kong early in the morning, and after spending quite a lot of time in first the Chinese and then the Hong Kong custums, we were released into the magnificent city of Hong Kong!! We loved it there, it was nice and warm, and we had blue skies and sun all the time we were there. The first night we went out to eat our final dinner with 4 people of the group, who were leaving the trip at this stage, it was a little wierd to see them leave, but we had a great last dinner. We spent our only full day in Hong Kong on shopping and avoiding all kinds of Asian foods, opting to go to more expensive western resturants, and that night we went with the peak tram to the peak and watched the sunset, before we hit the absolute jackpot in an supermarked, they had oatmeal and english magazines! Wuhuu!!
Early the next day we had to embark on our flight to Kaili. When we came down to the reception, we met the new people joining our group, all single females. Most of the rest of the day was spent in either custoums or on various transportation vehicles, and we did not arrive at our hotel in Kaili before 17:30, so that day was pretty much spent, we did go out for a group dinner that night to welcome the new arrivals.
The next day we were transported by public bus to the middle of nowhere, and embarked on our second trek.
that first day we walked for about 5 hours, before we arrived at the farmhouse we were to stay at. That night we had a local banquet, that included pot after pot of strong local ricewine, wich was consumed with great enthusiasm. The party started at 18:00 and ended at 23:00 when the last person collapsed in a drunken stupor, on one of the shared beds... Yes we had a slumberparty!! The next morning (midafternoon) when all of us were up and semi consious, we embarked on our 4 hour trek to the next village... A couple of the people in our group even gave some gifts back to nature, and we were a sorry lot when we arrived at our next guesthouse, where they had a welcomming ceremony for us, that to our dismay also included ricewine. We spent most of the afternoon lying on our beds and relaxing, before we attended a cultural show in the evening. the show was allright, but it was dominated by very drunk singel chinese men. And one of them tried to get Tuz to go home with him, but luckily Frank came to her rescue. But as soon as the show ended we hurried back to our room and locked the doors, and did not venture out more that night.
The next morning Tuz joined a couple of others and our local guide Fox (ti hi have thought of nothing but X-files jokes since the little chinese man told us his name) for a small walk around the village, before we embarked on yet another day of transportation. We actually just arrived in Kunming at 6:30 this morning, and we havent even been given a room yt, so we are just waiting for our rooms, so we can take a shower befor we decide what to do on our last day in China.... mm shower aahh
- comments