Re: my trip to rural mainland china
ok, first off are the hi res versions of the pics requested. i have even larger versions (the max upload allowed is 1200x1600 pixels), so if you want any of them, just pm me and i'll send them to you.
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[url]http://www.mercurynation.com/forums/album_pic.php?pic_id=588[/url]
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[quote=Yao]....tell us more about your experiences mate? What struck you, amazed you, disgusted you....spill it out![/quote]
well, starting off...just getting to this place was a bit of an adventure. flew from vancouver to hong kong (which i've been to a few times) and spent one night there. cross over the boarder to shenzhen, which is the nearest chinese city, about a 45 minute train ride away. got my visa same day service before going through customs (you MUST have a visa to travel into china), and then headed through customs. got a cab to the shenzhen airport, which was nearly an hour away from the boarder crossing, and tried to find a flight to Guelin, the nearest major city to where i was staying. this turned out to be a bit of a problem, as there was a shitload of rain that day so the flight i wanted to take was delayed till 7:45pm....i got to hang out in the airport for 9 hours. finally get on the plane (which they allowed smoking on!!) flew for an hour to Guelin. cousin was waiting for me there and we hopped onto a DODGY bus filled with pickpockets and headed to yangshuo a couple hours away.
Yangshuo itself isnt that big. you could drive across it in about 15-20 minutes. i think they have about 40,000 permament residence. they do have lots of tourists, but a large portion of them are chinese (since chinese are not allowed to leave their own country, they have to vacation at places like Yangshuo). there is a mass influx of them on the weekends when they come via a boat on the river. there were also a few americans and brits, and lots of aussies. also ran into some scandanavians and a group from columbia. many western tourists just roam around all of china.
anyways...about the locals. generally great people, very warm and friendly, always saying hello to us. in china, the merchants are pretty agressive sellers; ie. if you even look in their shop as you pass by, they will often say something to try and get you to come in and buy. some people kinda find it annoying at first, but once you get used to ignoring them if you arent interested in buying, its not a problem.
we partied it up there quite a bit, lots of great little bars and pubs. the locals and tourists all pretty much end up at the same spots, though there are some bars that cater more to tourists. beer is extremely cheap there....a 700ml bottle of beer (more than a pint) is between 4-7 rmb, which is about a dollar canadian. some of its not the highest quality stuff, but tsing tao beer kicks ass.
during the day we'd pretty much recover from the night before until about noon. my cousin would have to teach for 2 hours every day from 2-4pm, so i'd head out and go shopping or meet up with some other people we had met and have lunch (all the food i tried there was great). we went on several great hikes, bamboo rafting, touring around on those mini bikes into some pretty crazy places (ie. on the paths into the middle of rice fields or out into really remote villages). never really ran out of stuff to do.
here is a pic of a group of some of the english teachers, made up of brits, aussies, americans and canadians. this was probably the most amazing view i've ever had while eating a meal....we were on the top of the highest restaraunt in town. it was straight out of a movie.
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as far as things that shocked me:
what they'll eat there....you a body part from an animal, it was likely on the menu. every menu i saw at a chinese restaraunt had things like cat, dog, cow stomach, pig uterus, ect ect. some soups would come with a few chicken hearts, there was even one with rooster dick in it. needless to say, i passed on the freaky shit. ohh, and chicken feet, i didnt meet a single chinese person who didnt love chicken feet.
little kids there dont wear diapers. parents will make a hissing sound to try and get them to piss/shit....which they will then do by simply squating on the street. first time i saw that i threw up a little in my mouth.
general levels of sanitation arent exactly what we're used to...toilets are a porcelain hole in the ground, and while they do have plumbing, you cant flush toilet paper down because it will jam things up....so you have to put it into a basket next to the shitter. i was so happy to see a porcelian pony when i got home.
other than some of the things that grossed me out a bit, the place was fantastic, and i really would recommend going if you are anywhere near that area. there were so many amazing things to do...i really wish i'd taken a few tours, especially the cormorant fishing tour, where you get to watch huge cormorants go fishing at night and then bring the fish back to their owner. maybe next time...cause i am going back again for sure.