Visas, cycling, 23rd birthday and festivals...

• Tracks_kong's Profile
• About this blog
• Entry from Lijiang

Trip Start Jun 12, 2007 Previous
Entry Trip End Ongoing Next
Entry

  Lijiang, China
Thursday, August 9, 2007

Visa renewal application handed in to the charming people at the Guilin Public Security Bureau resulted in the need to procrastinate in the area for 7 days. After 8 weeks away from home the hair mop needed a bit of a chop hence a good excuse to waste some time. Walking down the street armed with passport photograph (in which I had short-er hair) I was on the look out for a barber. Along comes a girl 'Hullo, where you from?' - I try to ignore, I'm in no mood to practice English or to try defect some sort of tacky made in the motherland product in exchange for some of my hard earned Egg loan. However, she was incredibly persistent and chased me along the street for a good 100m or so. I gave in and allowed her to engage in conversation with me. When I told her I was in search of somewhere to cut my hair she conveniently said "my sister cuts hair! she can cut foreigners hair!". Anyone who has been to China will know offers of a haircut usually result in a bit more than you bargained for - however this girl seemed honest enough so I followed her down the backstreets of Guilin to an obscure shop front which was indeed as promised a hairdresser. Inside I met her sister (sister usually meaning cousin in China) and was reassured by the sight of a member of the People's Liberation Army whom was also having his mop chopped for the local festivities to "celebrate" 80 years of the founding of the PLA.

After trying to explain that the person in the passport photograph was indeed me (apparently us foreigners all look the same... but how many of us would say likewise about Sino-Asians?) the conversation turned to where I was heading on from Guilin. Any previous China traveler can predict I was going to say 'by boat to the village of Yangshou'. The government puts on a cruise boat for this popular journey at the price of 280Yuan - my new found acquaintance however was offering me the same trip on a farmer's boat for only 170Yuan. So I agreed to deviate away from the state sanctioned method of travel - but would only hand over money when I saw some sort of vessel vaguely pointing in the Yangshou direction.

Next day a clapped out minibus arrived and picked me up with promises of a farmer's vessel. Inside I met a dutch couple who too had refused to part with any monies unless on board a boat. 30 minutes later we were all handing over cash - a form of boat in sight, rucksack on board. So we sailed leisurely down the Li river toward Yangshou, a far more pleasant way to do so than the big government ship - but after about 2 hours of cruising I found out this was an illegal method of travel. The operators of the farmers' boats have no license to carry tourists thus cue the 'captain' to start shouting at us to get out of deck view and full steam ahead (getting thoroughly wet in the process) when a police boat from a far started giving chase. The captain made a mobile phone call and soon we were dumped at a village along the river where we met a woman with what can only be described as a diesel powered milk float... we were speedily driven to a larger village where we could catch a legitimate bus to Yangshou. I was told lunch was included in the price of this boat - I'm still waiting for it....

In Yangshou I met a 21-year-old Chinese girl with perfect English: she had the English, American, Aussie and even Irish profanities down to a tea. Yangshou is renowned for tourists getting lost, hot and frustrated on bikes amongst the paddie fields and mountains in the countryside - and likewise we did too however equipped with a girl fluent in the local yak this was somewhat less of a problem and cooling down was only a matter of jumping in the river with farmer's kids safe in the knowledge I had had all my cholera and diphtheria jabs before coming away. 5 days of cycling and swimming amongst the stunning Yangshou hills passed in an eye blink and soon I found myself returning to Guilin to collect my renewed Visa - free to leave the province!

The Chinese girl from Yangshou was going back to her home city of Kunming where she hoped to get a Visa for travel onward to Vietnam resulting in her membership of that very niche club: Chinese who go abroad. I agreed to go along with her as I intended to travel around the province of Yunnan where her home city is based. The overnight train to Kunming coincided with the arrival of my birthday - arrival in Kunming at 11am and cake, beers and the traditional danish happy birthday song (sung by some Danish girls, naturally) was the order of the day. However come 7pm I found myself alone - everyone I had met had buses to catch or family to visit... blocking out thoughts of my birthday I went out in search of some dinner to eat alone. Confused perusal of a menu outside a Japanese restaurant led to a 22-year-old Chinese student to offer assistance followed by invitation to join his friends for dinner. He spoke with a Canadian accent having lived there for a year where he met his Japanese girlfriend (also present). Neither could speak each other's language but became romantically involved through the power of English (that's nil to French romance, 1 to England). I was introduced to his uncle and his assistant. The uncle was some bigshot city official and made various profound comments about how wonderful it was to have an Englishman and Japanese girl united with the Chinese in front of Hotpot. At this point I made a comment about it being my birthday. A few sentences in Chinese to his assistant and we were soon off via car to a tea house on a pedestrian only street (parking restrictions were not a problem when the city official gave the zealous policeman a pat on the shoulder...). After consumption of the local tea tipple the city official produced a birthday cake and his assistant insisted she sing the "traditional" Chinese happy birthday song. Previously with the danish girls there was some banging of tables and melodies I had never heard before... the Chinese approach to the Happy Birthday song is however identical to the English - but not wanting to be rude I smiled in awe at this "traditional" song. A fairly unexpected and much enjoyable way to spend the night of my birthday.

From Kunming I made my way by bus to the ancient city of Dali. Staying in a guesthouse outside the city in the countryside I met a 39-year-old Japanese girl who had last year traveled from London to Cape Town on motorcycle (making my train trip look timid in comparison). I put to her my intention of traveling on mountain bike the 120km circumference of the lake next to Dali. She agreed to come along and next day we were off on bikes going through Bai Chinese minority villages untouched by the Han 'Money Mad' Chinese I've learned to loathe. We also traveled through villages that were nothing more than a couple of shabby tents - a reminder that China is firmly still a 2nd world country. Anyway, overnight stay in a hotel for 1 pound (the en suite bucket was an outstanding turquoise blue colour) with waking to realise that we had in fact booked ourselves in to a brothel meant a speedy departure on our bikes for the 60km remaining back to our village outside Dali. En route this day the villages all seemed to be preparing for something, something big. A festival of fire! 

Arrival back at our own village and a restaurant enlisted our help to help translate their menu in to English. This act was rewarded with a free meal with the family of the owner. Through the Japanese girl, who could speak Chinese, I was asked what English people thought of China. Lying on behalf of the country I said 'Englishmen think China is an exciting place to live at present. The Chinese are very lucky to live where they do and we can only watch in awe from our small island'. Such sycophancy does of course not go unrewarded - Chinese spirits and cigarettes were thrown my way with an invitation to join the family to go to the local Fire Festival celebrations that night (singed hair and avoiding kids with sticks on fire was an added bonus).

A different perspective on the Chinese this time... probably to do with the fact I'm in the south west of the country where phrases such as 'autonomous region' and '100 miles to Tibet' are thrown around not to mention the fact the that many people are of a different ethnicity!

Now residing in the city of Lijiang from where I will take a trip to the Tiger Leaping Gorge. Fingers crossed there are no landslides this time of year.

Hong Kong hotels Slideshow Share

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures

Me with burning stick	Moon Hill, Yangshou	Swimming in the Li River	Village Fire Festival
Yunnan Kids

Previous Entry Next Entry