"On the Trail"

The Journals from the Road

Friday, July 13 - Saturday, July 14, 2001: The Amazing Beauty around Yangshoa! - Guilin- Yangshoa-past Fuli-Yangshoa-Guilin, Guanxi, China (54 kms by bike) and then on to Liuzhou, Guanxi.

Tad here...

The area around Yangshoa is known for the stone peaks and hills that jut skyward at near ninety-degree angles and have been portrayed many times in Chinese paintings. This area, although I didn't know where it was at the time, was one of those places I wanted to see before planning this trip. I remember seeing paintings in restaurants at home of these landscapes, often cloaked in mist, and I filed the images away in my mind. Now I was so near but was only going to see this area for a bit over 24 hour so I wanted to make the most of that time. That meant that I bussed from Guilin, through the muddy sprawl, and out to the town of Yangshoa. Yangshoa seems to have quite a backpackers zone but I never went to that area of town. Instead I decided to find some noodles, check the guidebook map, and pedal out. I chose a recommended route to Fuli and then to Xing Ping, which looked about 30 kms away.

From before I came into Yangshoa and then all through that day and the next I found myself staring, wide eyed, up toward the green hills shooting up around me. It was about 4 pm by the time I got out onto the trail so I knew I had about 3 hours of riding. I planned to find a place to camp and ride back in the early morning before it got too hot.

The ride out was spectacular. I was glad the road was in good condition because my eyes were rarely on it, gazing at the hills all around. Many tourists bike this road and I met a few as I headed out.

I could have made better time but I kept stopping for pictures. The farmers in the area were harvesting rice and it was intriguing to watch the process of both the motorized harvester and the foot powered ones. Two farmers, husband and wife I would suspect, were struggling to get their harvester out of the mud, on to the road, and into their cart. I stopped and gave them an extra hand and like that old saying goes¡¦ ¡°many hands makes harvester fly into cart¡±.

For a long time I have been ready to get rid of one pair of my shorts. The elastic liner is gone and all support disappeared with it. I took a little video clip of this family with their foot-powered harvester and then left them my shorts. They seemed happy about that.

As evening was approaching I started inquiring for a place to eat and sleep. After a few attempts I met this large group of people watching TV in a house or restaurant or both (not quite sure). I got the impression that they were service workers or waiters of some kind and that one couple was the couple in charge. They offered me rice and some greens and a room to stay in. I told them I had a mattress and would be happy to sleep anywhere they told me that I should sleep on a bed. They were all quite happy watching TV so after dinner together I took a "dribble from a pipe" shower and went to bed. The heat, very loud talking, and loud TV combined to make sleep an unlikely option so I just pretended for a while.

Finally woke up and all but one snoozing man were gone. I woke up at five and started to put stuff together but didn't want to leave because I heard no stirring. That was because the one fellow there was still asleep. He woke up at six and I gave him a picture of me to thank him and his friends and continued to head away from Yangshoa. I stopped at another town for breakfast and asked people if they had heard about the Olympics in 2008 (the decision was made tonight). They had told me that, indeed, eijing had won! Later, when I checked email many of my new friends from China told me that they had cried tears of joy when they heard the news!! It has been something that has been talked about during my entire time here. I set the intention to return to China in er-ling-ling-ba (2008) if the Olympics were held in Beijing so it looks like I'll be back! I'd probably have come back anyway.

Back to breakfast...during my second bowl of noodles (yes, noodles can be for can be for lunch, dinner, and even breakfast) I heard what I thought was firecrackers. Then it sounded so continuous that I thought it was a truck or large engine with a bad muffler. It turned out to be fireworks. A fellow with a cart full of them and four guys rolling out strings of them behind the cart were coming down the road. They would quickly light one string and then run to the next string. Behind the explosion zon all I could see was smoke but I quickly got my camera. I thought maybe this was an Olympics celebration but as they noisily passed by I realized it was not. A wooden casket was visible through the smoke and there was a small band and then about 150 women, men, and children walked behind with white clothes covering their heads and backs. After that I decided it was time to head back. I got a fellow to take my picture and after a few minutes of explaining we got one.

The day before I asked a farmer and he almost ended up wandering off, mesmerized by the viewfinder screen. I wonder if it was his first time seeing a camera, let alone this digital one. He seemed to have no idea what it was for, other than slowly spinning it around. I would walk over to my bike and signal to him to point this way and he would just keep turning in slow circles. I finally just laughed, took a picture of him, and then showed it to him. He thought that was pretty cool.

Back in Yangshua I bargained for a bus to take the luggage, the steed, and me. About halfway through the trip the fee was reneged on. I got ticked and told the conductor I wanted the previously arranged fee, first in Chinese, and then, with even more fluency, in English. It is not the amount that bothered me. It is the renegotiating. I found myself pretty hot and decided I needed a calmer response next time. Maybe I should just re-perspective this kind of behavior as a little foreigner financial po icy test that I must take routinely to keep me assertive. Then I'd go through it as routine and not as an insult. The bus dropped me off in what was some mucky (it had rained) part of town I didn't recognize. I found my way to the train station but was convinced by an English teacher that bus was a better method for the first leg of the journey to Chengdu as my bike, going in the parcel section, may not arrive in time to make the train transfer down the line in Liuzhou.

The bus to Liuzhou was a great price and charged no extra for my bike, which was a welcome lack of hassle. The entertainment fair was a bad guys-good guys, kung fu movie that combined humor and killing in a way that made the five and six year olds next to me laugh when the bad guys were killed. It starred Chow Young Fat as the 'God of Gamblers'. Although it was hard not to watch it, being in the front seat, I also enjoyed the scenery and read about Chengdu.

In Liuzhou I had a great time! I was in very good spirits and started doing my own John Wayne Mandarin accent. It seemed to work pretty well in getting my messages across and although I was butchering the accent I do that anyway and this way was more fun. I had my best moto-taxi driver in China experience as this guy was polite, friendly, gracious, knew where he was going, didn't overcharge, and even tried out some English on me. He helped me round up some fruit for the trip and took me to and from a wangba.

I also rented a shower from a local hotel and that was heavenly until I found out that my fanny pack was getting soaked by the leaky pipe it was hanging on. Oh well, you can't have everything all the time.

On the train and tomorrow in Chengdu!

TAD

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