Shaaxi 沙溪

As we're into week 13 - the last week of this trip, I'm set in Chengdu, and not moving too much other than to take care of some beaurocratic issues that need to be addressed until the last minute so that I can get out on the designated time - I will save you the sad details.

 

In the meantime, between an overdose of Hot-pots, Dry-pots (干锅) and Chuan-cai (The Sichuanese Cuisine minus the above), a sampling of museums/ exhibitions, and drinking spots - we might be able to throw in another couple of posts. Alas, at this point, we are tracing back, nibbling at memory traces with the help of the remaining photos, and the order of posts is going to be quite random.

This one - Shaaxi, is from back in Yunnan, somewhere at the end of August.

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In one of the hidden valleys between Dali and Lijiang lies Shaaxi - a small ancient village that lies on a trading route, through which many trader horses passed and traded in years long forgotten.

 

Most of the travellers skip this place, and really, it's a lot of effort to get here (no direct transportation from either Dali or Lijiang) for a village that can be explored throughout within a couple of hours.

Still, some of the few travellers you do find here (and you find them all quickly - we were 7 foreigners for my first night in, sitting together over beers at the village's ancient square, including 2 foreigners that actually live there doing some botanical research) get caught here for quite some time, and quite a few are repeating visitors. So it's not a bad place apparently.

 

It's quite charming and quiet (minus the dancing in the village square that makes a lot of noise every night - something that apparently started to happen recently), and offers some nice little hiling opportunities around.

 

The real fun for me, though, was on a day trip I took for the near-by mountain range. And more than the mountain itself or its promised grottoes (that at mostpart stayed hidden from me), the real interesting bit was quite random and lucky, as I ran into a big group/ family that came up with me to the little rundown temple at the top of one of the hills, and with which I spent half the day as they were cheering the place up, and preparing loads of food - I asked later, and there was a very local festival coming up in a few days, but nothing really on that day - it might have been a private occasion or some early prep for the upcoming festival - but I never really found out.

 

And with this, I'll let the pictures tell you the rest.

 

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Tiger Leaping Gorge

It's morning. You open your eyes.

About 500m from your room's wood-framed window stands a 2,000m tall wall of rock. Mostly grey, with breaks of whitish-yellow, and some patches of greenery, mostly on the lower slopes. 

The window is at about 2,000m altitude (or so I figure), while the river down below is at 1,800m and the peaks at its other side are gaining on the 4,000 mark.

I'm the only guest in this guest house today, so it's a perfectly quiet morning, the only sounds - a dog barking 500m or so away from one of the Naxi-village houses down in the valley below.

In pockets of rock, some white clouds have settled in and are resting lazily. One of them warms up to the morning and slowly lifts away. A few minutes later, another small white cloud is slowly drifting in front of the mountain with the soft breeze.

I sit up on the bed in front of the window. I now notice some bird chirping added to the dog's distant barking. Noticing some curves of white limestone exposed on the mountains where the water are usually gushing through after a downpour.

I can now see the guest house's (= G.H.) little yard. Some small trees. Some bamboo. Stone tables. Beyond, the valley slopes down towards the river, with fields of corn and sunflowers, in between - some small wooden houses. From one of them the dog continues.

On the side of the yard, I notice the roof of the "restaurant"" area of the G.H., the roof-tiles are held in place by stones resting on them. A memory of yesterday's soup comes back. I was in real need of a proper soup, but none was to be found on the menu. I mentioned the lack of soup in a cracked disappointed voice to the lady here, and she told me that it's not on the menu, but of course the can make soup.

I have no idea if that soup falls under the "Naxi food" category, but that was an amazing "village/ farmhouse" vegetable soup, heavy with tasty chunks of vegetables, just a touch of chilly for added flavor, and amazingly no oil floating on top.

The G.H is probably the last down the road (at the moment), called "Woody".

Now, before going back for some details of the road leading to this point, let me go right ahead and give my recommendation for a visit to the Tiger Leaping Gorge. By now I gave these recommendations to a number of people I met later on, and twisted their plans a bit.

First thing. If you have no other interest to come to this area - you are not planning to do the back-door route, no interest in Shangrila, Lijiang, Dali, you just heard that this is THE hiking trail in south-west China ... cough-cough "BullShit" cough-cough.

Give it up, and don't waste too much time to get all the way here just for this.

If you are here, and passing through - it's a nice place, go for it.

So here's the main recommendation, fitting most of you:

Come in, find a minivan going through the lower path all the way to the "walnut garden" area (currently 180 Yuan for a car), and settle in one of the G.H's. Woody's is a good option, but you might want to tell the driver in advance - if he drops you off at Tina's, it's another 2 km down the road from there.

If by the time you've settled it's already 15:00 or later, just take out a book, sit in front of the mountain, and relax. Have a dinner and a few beers.

The next day (or alternatively, if you got here early enough - after a light lunch), go down to the "Middle tiger leaping stone".

Start from stairs going down in front of Sean's G.H. It's 2 km down the road from Tina's, or 10 mins walk up from Woody's. You will have to figure out some parts of the route, as signs exist (pointing towards were you just came from) but are sporadic.

In no time the "trail" goes right into some sunflowers/ corn fields - you will go right through them, in what seem to be the farmers' working trails rather than your designated path, and then through some villagers' back yards. After about an hour along the path, you go through a little wooden cabin - this means you've reached the "site" proper, and they'd hassle you for some passage money. It is very unclear of who can charge money for what there - it seems like these kind of gatekeepers appear and various spots with a sign that says you're to pay them money - supposedly this is for the maintenance of the path in the rock coming after that point - but supposedly you've paid an entrance fee for the whole area.

The path beyond that point was built into the rock, for the next 100m or so, and leads towards a view of the stone, and further towards a normal trail again.

You can actually see two stones - they both look like stones, and it's quite difficult to tell which one it is you're supposed to be excited about. Either way, while the stone makes for the story of the place, you're not here to see the stone.

You'll soon get to a point in which you can pay to climb up ladders built into the stone wall and stone steps. The person there will convince you that's the best way to go up, and that you can't really get further down to the rock. You can sit down for a break on some wooden benches there, and move on to the other side of the clearing. I personally missed that part, but you can go down very close to the river, and enjoy the powerful water running nearby.

You then have 3 options. Easiest is probably to just track back. If you don't mind a steep intensive climb, and for some reason would like to speed things up, go back to the ropes-and-ladders option, pay 10 yuan and climb. 

Alternatively, you can continue up the valley on the other side - this should go all the way up to Zhang's G.H, from which you will have to go back down the end of the "high trail" about 2 km to Tina's and on to your G.H.

The ropes-and-ladders option will take you 60-90 minutes depending on the amount of break-time. The way to Zhang's with getting back to Tina - will probably be about 2 hours.

If this is your arrival day, now's the time for a shower and a dinner, if it's your second day, you can take another relaxing day, or just get a shared van at Tina's with people coming off the higher trail, and head back to Qiaotou and hop on a bus to Shangrila/ Lijiang.

Option 2: If you're really really into hiking, then go for the higher trail. It's a nice trail all and all, and will give you a nice workout. If you're really into hiking, and fit to accommodate that - go for the full challenge, start bright and early, and finish in one day the whole thing including the second part that goes up to the "bamboo forest" and the waterfall, with a view to another gorge - this part starts to go back up just after you came all the way down and almost reached Tina's. Finish it all for a well-deserved dinner with drinks at one of the G.H.'s at the walnut garden area.

The next morning go down one of the paths (above) to the Middle stone before getting a shared van back or heading on east to some of the other options.

Option 3: is kind of the middle road - you're not an athlete-hiker, but feel in descent enough shape, and would like to sweat a bit for the views (although you know you don't really have to). See the story below for details of this option.

The option you do not want to take (!): Go for the higher trail although you do not really feel like doing much climbing, and then opt for riding  horse all the way up. Riding a horse up a steep rocky trail when you're tiered, scared, and not in shape is probably not that much fun anyway, and really - if you don't want to go through with the climb - there's no reason to do this - just go for option 1.

So what's the story?

Why did this gorge get attention, when really, you can probably pick any random mountain along the road to Shangrila or Litang, and get the same quality of scenery.

As a tourist - the reason is transportation, markerd trails, and available G.H.'s everywhere. But why here?

Legend has it that a Tiger one day ran across the mountain ridge, and decided for some reason to Leap across the Gorge to the other side. Nothing special, only that this Tiger was apparently not in proper shape, and did not really make it through to the other side.

In normal days, this would have been the end of that Tiger - plunging into the gushing river below and drowning.

But not this Tiger - he was lucky enough - as it happens, where he fell down (the ridge comes quite low here, so it might only be about 500m to 1 km worth of a free fall), he actually fell down on a solid rock rather than into the water - and that apparently saved him.

Right, so there you have it. I'm waiting for the cable cars that will take people soon up to the ridge, so that they can jump down to the stone and be saved as well.

The higher trail:

Or at least the first part of it ... Hopefully I'll be able to upload a few pictures soon enough.

I guess I have a special thing about attracting errr... stories. Maybe, again, it's the fact that when I climb on a steep hiking trail on a humid day I tend to take off my shirt and show off with my big sweating belly. Yes, I know, I'm not drawing a nice picture here - but that's the kind of picture that attracts them - it smells of money for those who make a leaving from helping you up the trail with a horse, or offering to carry you on a scary-looking stretcher or on their backs.

I am not against this kind of entrepreneurship, or generally against having such services on offer.

 

Indeed I politely smiled and said no-thank-you to the first 2 or 3 people along the path that were offering me a horse-ride. They were very nice to offer, and I politely declined and continued.

The last one I ran into, however, gave me the once over, and then tried to explain to me there just is no way I will be able to make it through on my own (no better way to get to a man's heart and make a sale). He even produced a small map (that encouranged me that I'm still on the right track), and showed me the dreaded/ notorious 28-bend climb, for which I will definitely be in a need for his services.

I tried to do the thank-you-but-no thing, and continued, but I quickly realized that the guy decided to follow me just the same. It was not difficult to find out - the horse had a little bell attached, so I was now accompanied by that annoying sound. I managed to make the guy realize I was not happy (without too many words at this point - the main exchange was "I'm not interested" answered by "no problem. Later."), so he quieted the bell - at that point I only heard the horses breathing at my ass as I was walking.

 

I tried to tell myself to just ignore the dude, and enjoy my time - or alternatively to enjoy the comfort of a free guide/ escort ... but I could only fool myself for that long - this was really killing the fun of walking along this magnificent path enjoying the quiet and nature (plus there was this implied insult with the guy believing that I will pay him at some point - surely he did not understand Israeli stubborness).

At some point, I had to start using the "opportunity" for some language exchange. I decided to keep it on nice words for now - which did not mean I was nice. I started shouting at the guy that I do not want to see or hear him. When I asked him if he understood, he started to say "Yes, but ..." "There's no but!" (没有但是). I tried to explain to him, that even if I will die trying to climb I will not pay him - I'll die in pain or use someone else...

But nothing helped. This was one of my breaks, and the guy moved up ahead of me on the trail, and for a few minutes I thought that maybe he got it. But apparently he took "not hear or see" in a different interpretation, and just moved 50m ahead to wait for me to pass him there, then waited, followed me 50m behind, and moved ahead when I rested again.

 

At some point, we got to the first G.H. on the trail ("Naxi G.H."). I decided I need to go beyind my current Chinese language abilities, and asked them there, as I was sipping my tea and Redbull if there's someone who speaks English. And there she was - very kind and helpful. I pointed at the guy waiting for me outside with his horse, and told the nice lady: "you see this nice gentleman sitting there? Can you please tell him that if I see him anywhere near me on the path I will throw stones at him?".

She made some clarifying questions, and then translated what I said into "he's not interested". right.

 

So there we were past the Naxi G.H., and the guy continuing on my tail.

The story ended when we reached the 28-bend climb. He was not about to continue up there once he saw me go ahead and not giving up beyond that point, so he was to make his last stand there. Only that I did not realize that we were at that crucial point on the trail.

All I knew is that on that very required break I was taking, the guy decided again to park his horse next to me, and sit right in front of my face. Even that little 50m-off thing was not happening.

So at that point, I started to resort to another part of my Chinese vocabulary. My Chinese teacher (bless her soul) gave me a few key phrases to be used for exactly these kind of occasions (originally, when I asked her - I had in mind people in bars that take friendliness a step or two too far).

 

"Gun!" I told the guy.

Now this might not sound like much, but from past experience, this word has a strong effect - unfortunately it never seem to be the desired one ... the meaning is all-encompassing, something between "get lost", "get out of my face" and "fuck off".

It seemed that they guy understood what I'm saying finally, but he was not taking it lying down" "you Gun!!" - and he was pointing the way back down the path. He did not stop there either, but continued with saying that that was HIS mountain. He was saying that he built that path himself, and if I was to climb and use this path I had to pay him. As he was saying that, he was repititively making signs of sticking a pole into the ground - I have no idea what's the significance of that.

 

When he was finished, I more or less realized that we will not get to agree on that fine day. I gave myself a few more minutes of rest, took some pictures of him, telling him it's for the police (maybe not the smartest thing ever, admittedly), and then stood up, and put on my backpack ready to move on. I had to pass right in front of him and was wondering how that will work out. As I was approaching, he asked "you're not going to pay me?!" I smiled mildly and moved on. He did not follow.

 

As if by magic, although throughout the day so far we ran into no other traveller on the trail, as soon as the guy left me, I started to pass and be passed by mmany other travellers.

The climb was - as expected - tiering, but with a few resting stops, I miraculously did make it all the way up the 28 bends, ending them at the right timing to join an Israeli couple for another couple of hours to the next G.H. (can't remember the name right now, butit was the first one out of ~3 around the "mid-way" area. I thought I'd call it a day at that point.

 

Though the couple decided to move on a bit, and I was left at that G.H. more or less alone - before long I found myself playing after-dinner cards with 7 other Israelis - an older couple, a mother-daughter duo, and a between-semesters Trio.

 

The next day, as I ended up not going for the second climbing part was rather straightforward, mainly going slowly downhill. Leaving quite early, while the others were mostly still sleeping, I found a new companion for the road - but this time it was a welcome ompanion - a little dog that decided to adopt me for a couple of hours - he was marking for me the vintage photo-op points as well.

 

The trail is supposedly well marked by red signs/ arrows - or so I was told at the outset. It can still get somewhat confusing at times. The signs have a tendency to be there at the most irrelevant points, and not really there when you'd appreciate a clear arrow. They seem to have been done by the various guest houses around, so that at this point they are in various colors, and not always 100% consistent. Generally, it seems that there is no higher power involved that regulates who should write what and where, and the authorities - as such - allow the market economics to take care of the trail's maintenance, while they focus on contunuously trying to build that road through the lower trail, and the mega-hotels that will come with its completion.

 

At some point, the Israeli young couple overpassed me, and I enjoyed their company for the reminder of the road to Tina's. Later in the afternoon, after having settled in Woody's, I went down to the Stone - but we've talked about that already.

 

You can try this link as well, and get the same story in pictures. Since the views are not changing that oftern, you'd find that it's spiced up with some "wildlife" additions. The quality is obviously signifianly lowered - due to the space-saving uploading the pictures. I might consider upoading the pictures in full scale for later batches, but that will probably mean I will kill my allocated space within 20 pictures.

 

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[Editorial] An apology

It seems that I have finally managed to stir some commotion. I was quite surprised it took so long to get to this point.

 

I'll start with some context and reservations and end with the apology proper.

Writing here about my experiences and impressions as I travel in China (or other countries), is expected to bring with it good as well as bad experiences, and with writing on the fly what is happening, some of the views are expected to (and should) stir various opinions, which can be shared in the comments section. I'm expecting as well that I will be contradicting myself over time, as I experience new things and change my perspective. Getting a few people upset, is alas a part of the risk I'm taking with this kind of writing.

 

In addition, since I have no direct access to Blogger, I am posting in a very unedited version, writing on the fly when I have a chance, and so - writing unedited - can make some occasional stupid remarks that I would probably have not left otherwise. This "posting on the fly" is obviously evident in some of the mispelling and "mis-grammer" that you can find throughout the posts. As I write this, I realize that making grammatical or spelling mistakes can also cause some misunderstanding of the intended meaning.

 

Thus, I do expect anyone reading this Blog, to be aware of the above, and to be able to be a bit forgiving and patient when I occasionally sidestep, or make some stupid comments.

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To the point at hand, then, Yunjun's remark seems to suggest that I somehow support this awful sentence: "no dogs and Chinese allowed". If anybody out there somehow understood this paragraph in a similar way, then I want to clarify 100% that this was not the intention or the meaning. I am far from calling any people dogs, or imply anything as such. I love Chinese people, have many Chinese friends, and would definitely have not been spending so much time travelling in this country if I had any such thoughts.

The realization that somebody could have interpreted my remark so wrongly is very upsetting for me - and I sincerely apologize to anyone who might have understood it this way. Hopefully nobody else did.

 

[ Some of the side remarks from Yunjun, I think are best left aside, as truthfully I fail to fully understand the intention - Yunjun, we can discuss those in person when I'm around Dublin again ]

 

The intention was quite simple, relating to customer rights to be served equally - something I learned to expect and believe in over time. The usage of this sentence, was intended to spice the description up, but obviously the associated implication intended is very loose and easy to miss. [ I would skip here the temptation to try and clarify further my original intention - this original comment is best left alone, and even better - deleted when I finally have proper access - it was the least important part of that post anyway. ]

 

Additionally, I have obviously chose poorly and have been stupid to have underestimated the kind of emotions this might bring up with people - which might (as it obviously has) take the conversation to a completely different direction than intended. So apologies for overstepping with using this very bad association.

 

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Through Guizhou to Chongqing - Part II

The 8+ hours' bumpy (big understatement) from Congjiang to Kaili was not the end of the Guizhou drive-through, but Kaili is the base for any proper village-hopping in the area, and I already chose the one village in its vicinity out of the available list on the guide book that sounded like it would be most value-adding.

 

Ling-zi offered to go together to the biggest attraction-village, Xijiang, once she'd finish working at 6PM. The place, thought the most touristy of the bunch, sounded like it's touristy for some good reasons, but those would be mainly day-time reasons (at night the all surrounding scenery will not really be available), plus I had some indications that there are no buses going back to Kaili in the evening. Ling-zi claimed (and I believed) that she knows how to get cars going back when we'll need them, but the whole thing somehow felt like a bit too much.

 

Either way, morning time I was clearly heading for my chosen destination - the Gejia-minority village of Matang. Easy enough to decide, small and unknown enough to be an adventure of its own to just figure out how to get there.

See, Kaili - as small a city as it might be - has about 5 bus stations. Add to that the fact that there is actually no bus going there as a destination, and that most people around may have heard about the place, but never really gave it a thought such as visiting, and there you go ...

 

I asked the lady in my hotel about it, as I was checking out, and she gladly told me that I can get a bus from down the street, adding something with the number 4, as in the counter for 4, as in there are 4 of something ... "4 buses a day?" I was guessing gladly, but she just repeated what she said, obviously we were not really understanding each other, but I had to stick to my guess.

 

At some point later, I realized there was no bus station proper down that street, but rather that she meant take the #4 bus - only she did not use the bus-line counter (I'm pretty sure), and she didn't really tell me where to be heading with that bus.

After also failing to find the station for the #4 bus, I went to one of the bike-riders on the street corner, and asked him if he knows where to get a bus to Matang from. With all my bad intonation, I have no idea how I can ask about "Matang" and they can come back with "Xijiang?!" - but this repeated several times that day. I showed the guy my pre-written little note of the place's name, and then he happily said "Ah, Matang" (right) "you should get a bus from the ~ bus station". He was pointing in the general direction which was the right one (easy enough, we were all the way on the east side, and he was pointing down the main road going west).

So there I was, sitting at the back seat of a Chinese motorcycle, flying down Beijing Dong Lu with the Engine off and in Neutral (to save on some Gas downhill), and without a helmet - cursing myself for being stupid enough to do that.

 

So I was happy enough when the guy said we arrived. But after some back and forth at the station I finally realized that this was of course not the right station, and the most that the ticket-clerk was helping me with is something along the lines of "take bus #4".

But again, no heading, and no help with where to get it.

Eventually I did find the #4, and went on it. The bus driver, as well as his ticketselling assitant, though, had no idea what everybody else was talking about. They had no idea where a bus to Matang would be going from, and where I'd expect them to be dropping me off.

Eventually, some of the people on the bus had an idea, and helped with some suggestions, and once she got it, the assistant even wrote for me the actual destination I should be aiming at - the bus that can drop me along the way in Matang. I started walking in the direction they indicated, which would have drawn a big blank if not for the nice guy who decided to follow me from the bus. We walked to a crossroad where he indicated I should be able to flag a bus, and waited with me, but once we failed flagging a bus, we headed up the street towards supposedly the actual bus station.

 

And there I was on the bus, and was indeed dropped off at the entrance to the village road. It's about 20 minutes down that road to get to the actual village proper (including a parking plaza for tourist buses, but not yet a restaurant), but the road itself is part of the fun, as it goes through the village's fields, filled with farmers beating the grains out of the rice growings.

 

The village is very nice, if very small, and once you're done exploring it, you can follow the path that leads up the hill and towards the village of Shilong - I did not follow that path, unfortunately, as I had no idea what that might be, and had not yet fully explored the village - but that now seems like a great recommendation - if you're already in Matang, go for this path, and get another rare minority village into it - it's a Xi-minority village, and from it, you can go on to the road that leads back to Kaili on the village's other side - no need to track back. You can then walk for 20 more minutes down the road towards Kaili to get some great views of mountain-side rice terraces before flagging any bus back to Kaili.

 

I stayed in the village, though, and tried to find a place to eat. Seeing me going back and forth near the village's entrance (which seemed the most tourist-oriented spot), a woman (who's picture I just took 5 minutes earlier spreading rice grains on straw matresses to dry, dressed in the local traditional clothing) asked me what I'm looking for. I asked her if she knows where I can get something to eat, and she happily replied "here, what do you want to eat?"

 

I said "vegetables", as I wasn't sure she'd be prepared with a sophisticated menu, and then I was seated in front of the rice-drying mats to wait, while she headed in to prepare. At my back was her house, at the side of which was the kitchen she entered to prepare the food.

It took close to one hour - apparently my timing was spotless. She started chopping some pumpkin, and before long her little daughter got back home, and was sent to buy some fresh green leaves. She then went and brought in some wood to light the kitchen's fire, went behind the house and picked up some spices and specifically fresh chillies from her garden.

 

The rest of the family arrived just as the smells were beginning to show, and just after she showed me a big chop of pork and asked me if I'd like some of that (with my vegetables).

When everything was ready, I was seated inside the "dining room" with the rest of the family. I said yes when I thought I was being offered some tea, but soon enough I found in front of me a bowl filled with a pinkish liquid which turned out to be their own brewed liquer. As I was drinking that, the grandpa figure was trying to convince me to let him pour me some of his own transparent liquid - he had his own stash. The father, though, insisted that I should stick to what I started with.

It was a great meal.

 

After saying my goodbyes, and heading back to the main road, I decided to give myself an hour of walking towards Kaili, in the hope that it will be enough for getting to a bend in the road I earmarked during the busride earlier for some great views of rice-terraces (in compensation for having skipped Longsheng). It took 45 minutes to get there, going by a number of small villages, including the mentioned Shilong.

 

Passing that views-section, I flagged a bus and headed back to town. Got my bag at the hotel, and headed to the bus station for a bus to Guiyang, from which (after a few hours) I got the night-train all the way to Chongqing.

 

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Arriving at Chongqing (through Guizhou)

There's no way around saying this - using the internet in china is a bitch.

Yesterday evening, I had a few hours to kill between arriving in Guiyang (the capital of Guizhou perfecture) and getting my train out of it towards Chongqing.

 

After eating way too much of some local - supposedly Guizhou food, but one never can tell - and finding out that Cauliflower can taste retty good, I decided to kill some of the extra time on the internet, and maybe throw in another quick update, or even better - get some of my pictures offloaded from my memory card to my portabe HD (since I could not find a computer to do this since Shenzhen, and running out of memore quickly).

 

I quickly found myself in a need for the police-trick again, but this time around - while finding a policeman, and get him to come help me was easy enough - the girl at the internet place just gave me a knowing winner smile, while she explained back to the policeman that they're not interested to bother with registering me for the one hour I'd be using the internet.

Puzzled, he just made some walkie-talkie calls, and ended up looking and me and apologizing that no - I cannot use the internet there.

 

Well, I guess in a country that allowed restaurants to put on signs such as "no dogs or chinese allowed" not to long a while back, there's only so much you can expect in terms of consumer rights.

 

I decided I want some down time, plus after the added hiking opportunities around Yangshuo, the descriptions of some of the other possibilities in Guangxi just didn't sound that much value-adding at that point (although I'm sure they're mighty nice places).

I've seen quite a number of Karst peaks in various forms by now, so seeing them around another village or a waterfall, seemed less of a must-see.

 

So I opted into running towards Chongqing, cutting through Guizhou - and as it happens, the most direct route was actually the "backdoor" route into guangxi (another route I seem to be doing upside down). So there I was heading back to Dong-minority country in Sanjiang - west Guangxi, and from there on into Guizhou.

 

The road were as always beautiful to the extreme (and so possibly saved me some of the need to actually visit some of the places enroute, such as the Dragon backbone rice terraces, or the villages just next to Sanjiang, minus the opportunity to take proper pictures there).

It was a day of bus-hopping. Starting in Yangshuo, after a dumpling breakfast I first took a bus back to Guilin, which turned out reaching the train station, rather then the bus station. Hopping on to the bus station, I got a 4-hour bus ride to Sanjiang - passing by longsheng (and the famous rice terraces area), and from there, moving from the east to the west bus station, was just on time to get the sunset-shift bus heading into CongJiang in Guizhou.

 

The next day I spent with Emma and Nick, a young Australian couplet I met on the bus to Congjiang.

We headed in the morning up the local hill to an ancient Miao village called Basha, where the locals are still holding on to some ancient customs and cloths - being in the holiday season, it still felt a bit touristy - although there is basically no proper transportation to this place. Still, it was lovely, and after we toured the place and got back to Congjiang, we still had time for a lazy lunch before taking the daily bus heading to Kaili - the local big-city.

 

On the bus, I made friends with Lingzi - a Dong girl from one of the villages in east Guizhou that now lives and works in Kaili - which is surprisingly looking like a proper city. The road getting there, however, felt nothing like a city - at most part, it falls under what I normally categorize as ass-buster road for bike riding. This one was not a pleasant ride.

We spent the evening with Lingzi, and met some of her friends - she even made a call, and they ended up coming with a pickup truck and shoving us around to find a cheap-enough hotel.

 

On the next day, I'll have to write separately, as it's time to move out ...