The Dong and Winding Road ( Part One)

No its not a spelling error.

When we planned this trip I said to Mandy that there was an area I reckoned we should try to get to. Its an area of "minority villages" north of Guilin and seemed like it would be the "real rural China". I thought it might be a little difficult to get around in as there was no train travel in the area, but we should maybe give it a go.

Ping'an was the first port of call and that was great. We talked a lot to Herbert, the owner of our accommodation, about the next step which was to a Dong (hence the title) village called Zhaoxing which, in the literature I had read, sounded beautiful and had not yet hit the Chinese group tour itinerary.

Herbert informed us that the road between Sangjiang ( in Guangxi province) to the border of Gizhou, the next Province, had been under construction for the last 10 years and with the unseasonal wet weather might be a little slow going. You know ( I thought) a bit like the difference in road conditions after you cross the SA/Vic border!! Also if we wanted to catch local transport we probably couldn't do it in a day, as we would miss connections.......maybe!! No-one could tell us what times the buses ran but everyone seemed to be agreed that they thought there might be a bus from Sangjiang to Zhaoxing at around 11am. The only way we could guarantee getting that bus (if in fact there was a bus) was to hire a car and driver to take us from Ping'an to Sangjiang.....for $80...what do you do? Its being caught by the short and curlies! We decided we would give it a go, so we organised a car to take us to Sangjiang.

The same lady porters picked up our bags the next morning and trotted off down the slippery paths. We followed tentatively avoiding donkeys laden with beer. and porters with the daily necessities, and eventually made it down to our awaiting 4 wheel drive. The driver was the husband of one of the porters so they said their farewells and off we went. The drive was uneventful, the driver very careful and apart from worrying about the cost we both thought this sort of travel wasn't too bad!!!! The driver did offer to take us all the way to Zhaoxing but the cost was prohibitive. He dropped us at the Sangjiang bus station, came in to make sure we were ok, and yes, there was a bus to Zhaoxing at 11 am.

We were told the bus trip wold be 5 or 6 hrs and I really should have looked at the distance we were to travel........but didn't. The first kilometre was fine then we hit the roadworks. The main road was a single track quagmire, with road works, that followed a river. The going was sluggish and slow but also slippery, with no guard rails and the necessity to inch past oncoming traffic and to pass slower vehicles at peril. The drops to the river below varied from between one to three bus rolls to maybe ten to fifteen bus rolls ( I calculated bus rolls as a side to side roll not head over heels roll!), and I figured we could survive a two to three BR ( bus rolls ) as long as we didn't end up in the river, but any higher BR factor and things would not be so good!

Not long after the beginning, Mandy turned to me and said,

"remember how you told my Mum you wouldn't put me at any risk.....is this one of those situations you were not going to put me in?".

Of course I exhibited extreme confidence in our bus driver and poohed poohed the appalling condition of the road, but in my mind was still calculating the BR factors!

It took us two and three quarter hours to get to the border, a mere 42 kilometres away from our start point. Mandy diverted her attention by trying to watch Lennie and Wass on "Crash Test Kitchen" ( her favourite cooking blog) and I, eyes tightly closed, played the perfect round of golf at Mt Osmond......its an easy game that golf!

Just before the provincial border three things happened: we stopped for a comfort break which consisted of three huts perched over the river...we didn't use them: the bus was stopped by the police and we had to get off and walk across a bridge that looked all right, but the way the bus inched over, it was obvious the bridge was near collapse: and thirdly the road improved and we were all smiles.......for awhile.

The next hour we travelled up a lovely valley, alongside a beautiful river, with quaint villages with "wind and rain bridges" a Dong architectural icon, passing great street side markets...it was bliss.......and then we started climbing and climbing and climbing, switchback after switchback, the road narrowed and I didn't even consider the BR factor because the drops, unguarded, appeared bottomless......give me the 3 foot deep mud earlier in the day, at least it kept the speed of the bus down! We entered the clouds and the rain and not even Lennie and Wass or a golf fantasy could detract. It was scary.

Two excruciating hours later we began our final descent, picked up a couple of schoolkids (which signified civilisation, and distracted Mandy as she played ipod games with them) and eventually Zhoaxing appeared. I think I'd actually forgotten by then, where, and definitely why, we were going.

It was raining, it was muddy, our packs had got wet in the bowels of the bus, and we were dropped off without even a "sorry about that mate!!"

Ping'an

We headed out of Yangshuo on the tourist bus heading for Ping'an, a Zhuang ( a minority group) village perched high in an area called the Dragons Backbone Rice Terraces. The easiest way to get there is to catch a tour group bus otherwise you have to catch local buses and change twice etc etc, but by catching this bus you have to join in the tour and listen to the tour guide.

You also stop in the village of "The women with the long hair" and watch a show put on by the woman of the village. Traditionally the woman don't cut their hair and wear it up in different styles according to whether they are single, married, have children etc. Part of the show is them taking their hair down showing it off and putting it back up. The sad thing is, some of the hair is fake these days. We met a traveller who saw one of the fake pieces fall off during a private performance, much to the embarrassment of the wearer!!

The highlight of the day was leaving the show with a hundred or so Chinese group tourists and having to cross a slippery swing bridge across a river. We were half way across when the childlike male Chinese decided to make the bridge swing from side to side. Trapped in the middle of the bridge, hemmed in by the group, staring down at a raging river, with a phobia of swing bridges, Mandy decided to try to put a stop to this behaviour. At the top of her voice she yelled " Stop that, you are being very silly, stop this". I think the perpetrators took this outburst from this strange foreigner as enthusiasm and swung even harder.

We inched our way safely across with Mandy wagging her finger in admonition at every participant.

We finally got on a smaller bus which snaked its way up a scary incline to the entrance to the village of Ping'an. It was pouring with rain and we knew the walk to the village was difficult so we hired two local ladies to carry our bags in baskets on their backs.

Wet, tired and cold we got to our guesthouse, got a great, cosy room with a wonderful view and decided to extend our stay for a few days. The room felt like a ship's cabin perched high on the bridge and Mandy swore she could feel it move!

We just sat for 3 days and watched the clouds drift in and out.......perfect.

Yangshuo

We caught a 26hr train from Shanghai to Guilin...what a marvellous experience....Mandy will fill in the details later.

We lobbed into Guilin in pouring rain and it didn't stop, so our view of the town, which was so much bigger than we thought ( isn't every town in China!) was a little less than positive, so we stayed one night and then headed down to Yangshuo....not on the Li River cruise. Sam and Luce and Seb said we should have done it and it is the done thing to do, but it was the "gravesweeping festival" and the boats would have been choko full of touring Chinese and they took 7 hours or so...we opted for the bus which took an hour.

We did have a night in Guilin and it has a lively bar scene and we even went to the local disco ( they were doing a JB Rum promo that night and it was all a little weird) and had another lesson in Chinese wine education. As we said we had had some pretty good wine, so went into a "wine bar" in Guilin and ordered a glass of red wine from the new owner. He proudly informed us that he had bought the bar last week and was keen for us to try his selection. The first was undrinkable, he took it back, the second much the same, so we asked whether the bottles had been opened long...sure he said and asked us how long a wine lasts after opening, to which we replied maybe two days. It was then we noticed that all of his wine selection on display, maybe 50 or so bottles all had been opened and were at various levels of consumption. He started to look a little concerned at his stock on hand and we wondered how much he had paid for this "excellent wine stock"

We had a beer and left.

We arrived at Yangshuo bus station did the mobile trick with the cab driver and were taken to the "Outside Inn" our default accommodation 5 ks outside of the town. It was delightful. I should have said Yangshuo is in an amazing area of limestone karst formations intertwined with rivers and lush vegetation. A very beautiful landscape. The Outside Inn is right in the country surrounded by great walks, and because it is out of town there is a lovely communal feeling to the Inn. We spent 3 days walking and eating and drinking and meeting some wonderful people. We spent time with two lovely Dutch couples one of whom Els and Pieter had been in Yangshuo 4 or 5 times and had flown straight to the Outside Inn to spend the 3 weeks of their annual holiday....it could be done!!

It was a bit cold still so we would spend the nights huddled around a combustion fire drinking Chilean red wine......(we wiped out their stocks!!) and talking travel and families...it was great. Nadine and Mike the managers were wonderful, with two lovely boys (one of whom attached himself to Mandy ) and a red Dachshund, Lulu (check out the photo Gude).

We had to leave after 3 nights as they were booked out, and went to some totally different accommodation in another village which is famous for its moon shaped hole in one of the limestone hills...its called Moon Village ( wouldn't ya know!). The source of entertainment here is watching the Chinese tour buses roll in and the occupants standing on platforms designed to capture a photo which looks like they are holding the moon ( the hole in the hill moon) in their palm.......man that is hard to describe! So much so I took a picture of Mandy holding the moon in her hand!

The family that ran "Moon Hill Resort"' our accommodation ( resort takes on a different meaning in China!) were delightful and it was interesting watching a family at work. There was also a local bus into town (there wasn't at Outside Inn) so we went in and hit the town every night. Yangshuo is a party town, an old hippy enclave, that has grown into the typical kilometre square of bars, souvenir shops, restaurants serving vegie burgers, french fries and cold beer. Think of parts of Kuta, tacky tacky tacky...but fun , fun ,fun.

We visited some great produce markets in nearby villages, spent some days having a leisurely lunch on the rivers watching the world (and many tourists) go by and generally chilling out.

Oh yeah, we also went and saw the famous sound and light show, which was pretty good, except for the rain.

AND, I almost forgot...I had my boot fixed. Before we left I had my favourite walking boots resoled. Well after three weeks the soles were coming apart, which was a worry. We showed the problem to a taxi driver and he dropped us off in front of this women on a street corner and gave us the thumbs up. The women took one look at the problem quoted us a price and proceeded, over the next 50 minutes to glue and invisibly restitch the sole to the boot. The technique used is too intricate to explain but we reckon this sole is never, ever going to become detached again!!!!