A Short Walk to the Village…

Hi all, Dad here.  It’s Thursday morning and Wednesday is behind us.  Thank goodness.

In the Chinese culture, the concept of Yin and Yang is everywhere. It followed us around all day yesterday.

 We were a few moments delayed when we left Shanghai for Guilin. On the way to the plane, we needed to go down an escalator. I was standing next to Kyle when a 70ish Chinese woman  (who Kyle called “the Grandma”) made her way down a few steps and gave a good tug on Kyle’s backpack. She said something in Mandarin, but my Manderin is a little weak. I’m not sure what she said but I hope It was “what a strong boy to be carrying such a big backpack.” For his part, Kyle was a little confused as to why an older Chinese woman should be tugging on his backpack as he was going down the escalator.  He looked to me to clear up his confusion – all he got was a blank look from me and a shoulder shrug. Then he proceeded to ask Mom “what defense tactics were legal for him to use in China as she might have been trying to backpack pickpocket him.”  Kyle is always the one to be thinking of our safety.  Another one of those things that Mom and Dad have come to expect and the kids have come to accept.

 Yesterday we had a great experience. Our guide picked us up at our hotel after a nice breakfast. Before we met our guide, however we walked around the hotel grounds a bit.  The kids found the outdoor pool, which was closed unfortunately  (because you know it is only 100 degrees here and who uses an outdoor pool?!) And they also found a playground. It was a little kids playground, but it was still a playground. As Mom was taking pictures of the landscape around the hotel, she wandered up to a group of chickens. Yes, chickens. Yes, chickens at the hotel. She tried to get a little closer to the chickens to get a better picture, but the chickens were not on board. One of them started walking towar Mom,  trying to let her know that hey you’re a bit too close. Since Mom doesn’t speak “chicken,”  she  did not move very fast as they were very far away.  Let’s just say the chicken escalated things. She made a charge at Mom’s kneecaps. That’s about when Mom understood that hey maybe I should go. I am just a little disappointed that I don’t have video of Mom taking pictures of the chickens.  It would have been YouTube gold.

 We met up with our guide, Lily, and drove to Reed Flute Cave. We made our way inside, and it was pretty incredible. It was by far the largest and deepest cave that we have ever seen.  There were hundreds of formations, some that were really like something out of a movie special effects department.  They were illuminated in different color lights, and the walkways were  lit up with LED rope lights. That made it really easy to get around especially with Ryan.   The sites inside the cave system were visually stunning, but I was a little bit disappointed that Ryan could not see everything like we could.   We got some really good pictures, and hopefully will be able to post them shortly.  Also, they had to fill in one area of the cave with a small water area as too many people were using it as a “pee zone” inside the cave.  Quite gross to say the least.  The cave formations all had names of different things (i.e. one looked like a snowman, another like a lion)

 Next up, was a two hour ride to the Longsheng Ruce Terraces, the Longji Zhuang Village and the Ping’an Village.  We have done many side trips in our journeys in China.  The trip to the villages was a bit different for us.   The driver’s seat had an incessant squeak providing a constant background noise for the entire trip. We were also apparently in a part of China where traffic laws were subject to personal interpretation.  As we climbed slowly into the mountains, there were a number of large trucks and other vehicles carrying cargo. It was a 2 lane road, so passing was necessary.  Our driver  maneuvered our van expertly around truck after truck after truck, while avoiding oncoming traffic in the other lane.  Passing opportunities came along only so often so there was a lot of poking out into the left lane then diving back into the right lane behind the truck, when oncoming traffic was too close or too fast.  All the while he also had to avoid scooters, motor bikes, bicycles and pedestrians.   It was difficult to watch… So after a while  I didn’t.  And, Lily our guide told us that they make this trip two or three times every week!  In my view, the driver needs a raise.  The ride was crazy, but we made it.

 We finally made it to a bus depot where we were switching to a shuttle bus for the ride to the top. As we were waiting for the bus Ryan got a bloody nose, probably from the dry thin air.  We were in the waiting area trying to stop the bleeding, while avoiding all of the native Chinese who had gathered around to watch what was happening (but no one offering any help and of course, because it was Thursday, the room with the big red medical Clinic sign was closed!)  We finally got everything under control, so we could at least enough to get on the next bus.

 The hike to our first village was worthy of a sitcom script. The heat was unbearable and there was no shade, but at least humidity was only 90% for the 1 mile uphill (!) walk.  We underestimated the walk, because it looked so close. But perspective and perceptions when looking across a mountaintop can be deceiving. I give Lisa  and the children a huge amount of credit for staying with it, and keeping up a good pace. I lost track of how many times and who said are we almost there yet –  it was worse than the 13 hour car trip to Michigan every year!  Also, every few hundred yards or so Ryan’s nose started to bleed again. We all felt really badly for him since he could not control it. We did the best we could with the tissues and baby wipes that we brought with us, and while our guide asked us 20 times if this was normal for him and what was wrong.

 After about an hour of hiking on pretty narrow and sometimes precarious trails we arrived at our Longli Zhuang Family’ House for lunch. It was far from a short walk.  We were definitely ready for something to eat and for a few cold drinks.  Our lunch was prepared by a local minority family and served on a small table with small chairs. When I say small,  I really mean small. The table could not of been more than 18 inches from the floor,  and the chairs were not much bigger than toddler chairs, if that.   Scratch that, they were toddler chairs. They could not have been any more than 12 inches off the floor. Not wanting to offend our hosts we settled into our seats around the table. Once the food started coming, lunch was actually a very good and quite delicious meal.  We had bamboo rice, bamboo chicken, oil tea (which is a soup like dish), potatoes, bacon and a variety of other vegetable side dishes.  We also had a very (too sweet) native tea and some kind of wine whose alcohol content increased by the hour, according to our guide.  We took a sip and it was like doing a shot.  Did we mention that it was very hot?!  No air conditioning, hot food and the room was about to start spinning.

 When the meal concluded, we said our thank yous and headed downstairs.   Speaking of chickens, there was quite a commotion as we came down the stairs. (Just some background, our Dylan has a very severe and irrational fear of birds.)   Since we were in a remote village, there were lots of hens, chickens and roosters running around free. Unfortunately Dylan crossed paths with a chicken coming upstairs as he tried to go down.  It was not good – I am going to leave it at that.

 Of course before we left we wanted to get pictures of the four pigs that lived in the basement with lots of chicken and “watch your feet” poop. Yes, (not a typo) there were four pigs living in the basement. I don’t think the kids made the connection between the bacon served upstairs and the pigs living downstairs, which is ok.

Lily and the family wanted us to take Ryan to the Village clinic to check on his bloody nose. Since his nose had  settled down, we chose to soldier on.   It was a good thing because the second half of the hike was even more difficult than the first half. We walked, sweated, argued, drank, walked, sweated, argued, sweated and drank some more.  By this time, our water was a hot delicious and refreshing temp similar to hot tea!

There were tons of opportunities to take pictures of the valley below as we made our way up the mountain. The rice fields and terraced planting beds of rice stretched as far as the eye could see. It was like something out of a National Geographic documentary. We are thankful that the kids had the opportunity to visit the villages and see how they lived.

Additionally, during one of our photo stops, somehow Ryan lost his footing and fell ankle deep into a rice paddy just off the footpath.  There was never any real danger as the drop offs were not that high. But at least he fell on his bottom when he fell. The back of his pants and his shirt got soaked with water and mud from the rice plants.  We quickly lifted him out and he was no worse for the wear.  A bit embarrassed, but brave enough to carry-on. I don’t know if the mud stains will come out of his shirt, but if not, they will be a reminder of this story.

 Because we were having so much fun in the heat, about  10 minutes after that, the rain started. When we left the hotel Lily did tell us that it was a possibility that it could rain. We even brought three large hotel umbrellas with us.  It was a good thing we left them in the van. The rain came down pretty hard but it did not last long. We gathered under a large tree on a wide part of the path to wait out the  rain. Lily predicted that it would last about 20 or 25 minutes and she was right on, as usual. We got into our hiking formation again and made our way to Ping’An village, and the point of our hike for the day. The last 200 yards was a very difficult climb on a very narrow part of the path with slippery post rain rocks and large drop offs, but again we all made it in one piece. We were wet,  thirsty, sweaty, dirty, but happy that we had made it.

 The last phase of our journey saw us climbing down through the alleys and walkways of Ping’An village, past restaurants, shops, and hotels. The hotels were not like the hotels you all would think of.  They seemed more like rooming houses with very few amenities.   On the way down we passed other groups of tourists on the way up to the hotels. They were dropped off by their buses and they had to make their way up on the same path that we were coming down on. Then there was the issue of their luggage. Soon after we passed the tourists, we passed the locals who were hauling the luggage. Most of the locals carried baskets on their back, and in the baskets were the suitcases.    The average age of these luggage porters had to be 63 years old and wearing brightly embroidered clothes.  There were several that looked to be in their 80s.  Lily told us that they carried to the luggage to earn money.  Neither of the villages allows cars, so only bikes and scooters and hybrid bike/scooter can go up and down in a few select parts.

At the end of the path, we met a Yao woman who was one of the famous villagers that grows their hair and never cuts it.  They are known to have some of the longest hair in the world.  Her hair (and she was in her 40s-50s) was down to her feet and then she had 2 extra individual pony tails of hair that were made from loose hair that had been combed out over the years.  She pulled it all out for the kids to see, and then re-wound it up into a big bun on her head.  The hair is jet black and they only wash it with rice water (no shampoo).  It was pretty neat.

 Not long after that we  caught up with our shuttle bus, for the trip back to our van. I would think that the wealthiest people in the village were the ones who sold brake shoes and brake pads for the shuttle buses on the hill down from the mountain village. From  the moment we started rolling to the bottom of the hill, it was constant breaking and negotiation of hairpin switchback turns.  Even for me, it was a bit unnerving.   The drop offs around the curves were pretty severe, and the turns were so tight that on nearly everyone the driver was beeping to alert on coming traffic coming up the hill. Only a few of the turns had mirrors.  Again the trip was a wild one, but we made it back to our van safely. We had our bathroom break, then settled in for the two hour ride back to the hotel.

 I don’t recall much of the ride home, because I was napping often on in the far back seat and a very long day.  On the way home, we saw a semi truck overturned because our guide said they carry too heavy of loads and then tip over. We also saw some random fires in yards.  It was a great day, the climb was difficult, the heat was brutal, but we got to see some very interesting things that some people we’m never see again.  They all seem to ask our guide about the kids, but she doesn’t translate back to us.  They speak a dialect in the villages and no one seems to use any English.  We do hear the number four mentioned a lot, when they speak of the children.  We enjoyed a very nice meal served by our gracious hosts. Yin…Yang.  And hopefully, the kids will remember the day, through the pictures we took and hopefully we’ll be able to share them shortly.

Stay tuned for the Yao Mountain adventure next.