Chongqing - Tong Nan
Trip Start
May 15, 2008
1
7
14
Trip End
Aug 15, 2008
Chongqing,
China
Friday, May 23, 2008
Airplane to Chongqing
Airplane beef treat
When we arrived in Chongqing we were met by Xiao Li and one of her family members at the airport. Xiao Li had already gone to Sichuan earlier in the week and she would be needed to guide us on how to get to her families house. From the airport we got into a cab that took us to the train station. We had five people + the driver and all of our luggage in a VW Jetta. At one point in the ride Xiao Li had to lay across everyone in the back seat because the driver said the "police" were checking to make sure there weren't any cars that had more people in them than seatbelts.
Hiding Xiao Li because we were full
Our cab ride was about 20 minutes and Xiao Li had already bought our tickets to the train. It was at the train station that the continuous staring at the foreigners started. The train station was quite large and very crowded. We got in line for the train and were immediately approched by 6-8 guys saying HELLOOO and trying to shake our hands. Liz and Mike both got quite uncomfortable from the number of people around us and staring at us.
Overly crowded train station
The line finally started to move through the narrow turnstiles and it was a mad rush of people pushing all around us to get through. Xiao Li was in front of us and when she got close to turnstiles she put her arms out and stopped the entire crowd so we all could get through, it was amazing. After that we got down to the train and we were able to get enough seats for all of us to sit together on the hour long train ride into the town of Tong Nan. Unfortunately, it was dark, so we didn't get to see the countryside we were traveling through.
Train ride to Tong Nan
Tong Nan is the closest town to Xiao Li's house. It is approximately 200 miles from where the earthquakes happened, but there was no damage in this area. When we got off of the train we got onto a bus that was very full, the majority of the trip the bus was turned off and we were just coasting down the hill. As we got closer to the center of town, we saw quite a few of the open areas that people were sleeping in under huge tarps. The reason for them sleeping outside was that they were scared of earthquake aftershocks, so they wouldn't sleep inside, hotels were even closed.
Bus from train to Tong Nan
Once we got into town we got off the bus and into a cab for the last leg of the trip that would take us to where we would be walking the rest of the way. We were in the cab for about 3 miles and we eventually saw a flashlight go on and off on the right hand side of the road, but nothing else was around at all...this is where the adventure really starts. The flashlight was coming from Xiao Li's dad who walked out to the road to meet us, it was pitch black and about 8 o'clock at night. We unloaded all of our stuff from the cab, Liz and I fit all of our stuff into one hiking backpack, and her dad immediately grabbed my pack and put it on his back. We had bought crappy shoes because we knew we would be walking through about 1.5 miles of sloppy red clay/mud, but he wouldln't let me wear them and insisted that I put on these rain boots that were no larger than a size 9, while I wear a size 12 shoe. The pain from having my toes curled up was pretty miserable as we marched our way back through fields to our final destination. This trip that we just did from Tong Nan to their house is about 7 miles and it is something that they do almost every day on foot. They will rarely even take a cab or bus, they do not own a car and bicycles are not very common in this area for some reason. Everything is carried over their shoulders on a bamboo stick that has a basket attached to each end, or in a basket and two ropes that they wear like a backpack.
Common way to carry goods
Upon arriving at their house, we were fed a great meal in the kitchen and we had a couple of beers.
Enterance to the house
Earlier in the week, Xiao Li and her dad went into town to buy a refrigerator (their first one ever) because they knew we would be coming and we don't like to drink warm beer. This refrigerator was carried from the road on his back, I would say it was about 4 feet tall and defintely not something I would want to carry on my back in the mud, it is in the left hand side of this picture.
Their kitchen
After a long day of travelling we were ready to settle in for the night, but first we had to get the live chickens out of our bedroom that we would be sharing with Mike and Xiao Li.
The bedroom door
The bedroom the 4 of us shared
The next day we were woken up around 6 AM, because that is what time life gets started on a farm. Nearly everything that they eat is grown/raised on their property, chickens, potatoes, peanuts, vegetables, fish, duck, fruit, even the rice that we were eating everyday.
Rice fields from the house
But this weekend was going to be a big party, so we had to head into town to buy a ton of food for the number of people that would be coming on Saturday for lunch. After breakfast we got ready to head into town, this time I refused to wear the boots that were too small for me. Liz still wore her rain boots and she looks like the girl from the tomb raider movies.
Look out Tomb Raider
This picture also shows what we walked in on the night before, this is known as "the road" and when it hasn't rained for a couple of days it's actually pretty easy to walk on, we were there just after 3 days of rain, so it was still pretty sloppy. Once we hit the main road we waited for a bus into town, they took the bus this time because Mike was paying.
Family waiting for the bus to town
The time in town was very enjoyable and sometimes humerous. There is no doubt in my mind that we were the only foreigners in this town, and that made us quite the specticle. People would stop what they were doing just to look at us, not because they were upset that we were there, but because they were curious about us and how we looked and acted. Add on top of the fact that we are foreigners, that Mike can speak Chinese very well and you quickly have a large crowd of people around you, just looking and wondering.
The crowd we attracted
We spent about 4 hours in town buying all sorts of things, mainly vegetables, and being stared at.
Market in Tong Nan
Meat in open air market
We got back from town on a bus and walked back to the house a different way, since the paths were drying up. The path that we took this time was only about a foot wide and was going through all of the rice fields that the neighbors had. If you slip, your foot gets wet in the rice paddies. After getting home and having some lunch we walked to some relatives/neighbors homes.
Grandpa in son's house
LIz and a new buddy
His house in the background
Funny neighbor full of energy
After returning from our walk, Mike and Liz took a nap and I stayed up. We were told we were going to catch some fish at 5 o'clock, so I got everyone up at that time. They weren't happy that they had to get up, but I'm sure they were happy they didn't miss the next events. We walked down to the lake and two guys went to get the net for fishing. The net is long enough to stretch across the 50 yard wide lake and has weights on the bottom of the net so fish can't get through under the net. After a while Mike and I got into the lake in our underwear to help out. The lake was about waist deep and each step put you up to your knees in mud.
Preparing to catch dinner
Mike and I got in to help in our underwear
As the net got across the lake the number of fish trying to jump from one side of the net to the other was amazing. We were even getting hit in the back and arms from the jumping fish. The ends of the net were eventually brought back together and we got two of the biggest fish of the hundreds we caught, a carp and a "big head"...that's dinner for the night.
After catching the fish
Soon to be dinner in the net
After dinner we had some drinks, no one tried to gang up on us to see how much the foreigner could drink, but we had our fair share.
Drinking in the dining room
Xiao Li's uncle wanted to arm wrestle me. I thought it could be a close match because this guys is pretty ripped from working so hard on the farms and dragging that huge net across the lake, but I was successful.
The next day was the big party, a lunch time birthday party that wound up having about 30 people at it. Early in the morning, the meat man came by selling meat. He didn't have a refrigerated truck or a cooler, just a basket on his back full of about 30 pounds of meat. They wound up buying almost everything that the young guy had for sale after about 5 people beat him up on his price. Next we had to go and catch some more fish, this time Mike and I didn't get in to help, Liz said that something could crawl up one of my orfices and that got me thinking too much. Xiao Li's step mom wound up jumping in because her uncle was struggling with that huge net by himself.
Xiao Lis step mom jumped in to help
Sort thru for the big ones
The party got going around noon and we had to pull out extra tables and chairs. There was more than enough food for everyone at the party and probably about 20 more people (tradition in their culture).
Our table for the party
It eventually turned into a drinking event with many cases of beer being drank. One guy at our table was enjoying drinking with the foreigners, but he wound up crossing his limit and quickly visited the bathroom.
Table Two
He was done not long after this picture
They also like to drink beer out of a bowl, a new concept to us, but something that I sort of enjoyed doing. Kids also would run into our room and grab a bottle of beer.
Beer out of a bowl
Another underager
The party wound down later in the afternoon and the rest of the day was pretty calm with a long nap and then dinner. The next day would be the start of our trip back to Qing Xi. We weren't flying out until Monday, but we didn't want to depend on the schedule of two buses, a train and then a cab to get us to the airport by 10:30AM, so we decided to get back into Chongqing on Sunday. We packed up all of our stuff and headed down into Tong Nan to buy some ducks and chickens for Xiao Li's family. The ducks and chickens were sold in another open air market and just kept inside of little pens. If there was ever a place for the bird flu to spread rapidly, this would be the place. We didn't want to stay too close to Xiao Li's family while they were negotiating the price for the ducks, because they would gouge them if they knew that a foreigner was paying for the ducks. They got the price down to about $0.27/duck, Mike bought 106 of them. Then they bought about 12 chickens and we parted ways.
The last walk to the road
We stored out bags in this room
Mike bought 106 of these ducklings for $30
Just knowing that the end of the trip was near made some of us start to get a little anxious and the overload of people looking at us was getting to be a little too much, so we were happy that our trip was coming to an end. We had about 5 hours to kill before the next train would be heading into Chongqing, so we hung around town for a little bit then got onto the bus to the train station. Liz and I watched a handful of episodes of Entourage on the portable DVD player my parents got us...that thing has saved our sanity numerous times already. We had a beer at the station and had to buy big fans to keep ourselves cool in the hot train station. We ate noodles at the train station and eventually got onto a very full train to Chongqing. This time it was light out and the terraced hills were beautiful.
Beer in Tong Nan train station
After getting off the train we had to get near the airport and find a hotel room. Xiao Li didn't want to spend the $5 extra to take a cab, so we were waiting for a bus. The bus took a long time to come and Mike finally convinced her that it would be much more convenient to take a cab.
Van to Chongqing
Now we had to find a hotel room, one place said it was a hotel, but it wound up being a restaurant. The second place was decent and where we stayed. The first room they put us in did not have any windows and as soon as I closed the door Liz started to get dizzy and said "no way I can stay in this jail cell"...so we got the only room with a window and everyone was happy. The next day we were scheduled to fly out at 10:30 AM, but then they started taking pictures of the airplanes tail and we had to get on anotehr flight. 8 hours later we finally were on our way back to Qing Xi.
8 hours in Chongqing airport
I would say this was definitely a trip of a lifetime...to think of how removed we were from "normal" everyday life was amazing. I would defintely do the trip again and hope that we are given the oppurtunity some other time. The people that we met were such hard working people who were happy as could be with how little they actually had.
