Entering China: Shenzhen and the Li River valley
Trip Start
Aug 21, 2007
1
16
27
Trip End
Dec 20, 2007
Guilin,
China
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Leaving Hong Kong, our first stop in China was to be the border town of Shenzhen to meet our friend Feng there. It was great to see him as he picked us up at immigrations and took us to our very flash hotel. That was true bliss after our crammed abode in Hong Kong.
Feng took us on an evening tour of Shenzhen and we truly marveled at this fastest growing town in China. Shenzhen probably boasts as many skyscrapers as Hong Kong has and it's hard to comprehend that only 25 years ago there was a quaint fishing town here. Then Shenzhen won the equivalent of the capitalistic national lottery and was awarded special economic region status in the early eighties. Probably to rival Hong Kong and be an advertisement for the economic potential of China. So with massive foreign and national investment Shenzhen now has over 14 million inhabitants (don't hold me to my stats, my usual information source (wikipedia) is barred in China, matter of fact we're lucky this site is running). It is a modern sprawling and very clean city. We were very impressed. Wide boulevards and a sophisticated flair in the business district and a very organic feel to the night life. The inhabitants are just as young as the city, you'll barely see anybody above 30 on the streets. Young people come here to work in the factories. Sadly since we've been on Chinese soil it's been misty throughout. I can't help thinking the factories are to blame for this. Feng also introduced us to a bunch of incredibly delicious local Cantonese and Szechuan food.
Chinese utility vehicle
He was an accomplished host and great in showing us the massive extent of the city and the busy port (apparently the busiest in China, followed by Shanghai). Next stop via overnight train was Guilin, located in vast karst landscapes along th Li river and mekka for Chinese and international tourists. And rightly so. The landscape is stunningly beautiful. We headed straight for the sleepy hamlet of Yangdi from where we took a bamboo raft down the river to the equally sleepy town of Xingping. It was a very tranquil 2 hr ride. We got shouted at by a policeman in a boat on arrival and tonight we met two lovely Chinese holidaymakers, Ruxia and Chuan from Beijing, who tried to do the exact same trip a day later. They were turned away and told that due to police patrols the bamboo rides (which are apparently illegal) had been stopped. That's such a shame, especially as noisy stuffed riverboats are a poor alternative for individual travellers with some time to spare for the nostalgic/romantic bamboo ride.
As soon as we arrived Xingping the river started filling up with a virtually neverending train of tourist ships transporting western and Chinese tourists up and down the river and making an incredible racket resonating throughout the river valley. We took refuge on a hill with two pagodas overlooking a loop in the river and met a dutch couple up there, the only other westerners in the village. We stayed in a lovely place recommended by Frank: the Family Cafe in the village's old town.
Xingping
Xingping was a very authentic, truly charming farming town. And unspoilt by the touristic mayhem in Guilin or Yangshuo. A true haven of peace.We're now in Yangshuo which as a town is disappointingly touristy. But the surroundings are well worth the visit: Yesterday we did a bike tour with Matt from Chicago to Moon Hill, a limestone karst outcrop with a hole through it. After that we had the local speciality, beer fish, and then cycled along the scenic Yulong river that took us through a bunch of quaint farming villages. Right now is the time of rice harvest. For us it's an the endpoint to 2 months of our journey accompanying the growth of rice from a lush green small plant to the golden ripe grain. It's interesting to watch the farmers process the rice and we could even join in separating husk from corn.
We had a really weird encounter: in the middle of nowhere on a dirt road someone called my name. And as I turned round it was my old high school classmates Anke Kroener and Markus Brueckner! How small is the world and China? They are on their honeymoon as well. They live in Shanghai and hopefully we'll be able to spend more time with them when we're there. Crazy stuff!
We spent yesterday evening at our guest house with our host Debbie and Christin, a traveller from Arizona, whose physique and name is astoundingly reminiscent of Kirsten Dunst. Our second movie star lookalike on this tour!
Today we took our bikes to the farmer's market in the small riverside town of Fuli. We saw some interesting things there. A healer applying brown jelly to someone's backside; merchants blowtorching the bristles off half a pig's face (and that's just the skin - apparently a delicacy); live chickens being weighed by their feet for sale, then tied around the handlebars of motorbikes to be taken back to the village; and open air barbers (I got myself a haircut for 1 Euro with much interest from the local population). We were being shadowed by a very obvious pickpocket who was clearly after our well secured cameras. He was lucky to have been foiled in the attempt by an energetic slap on the wrist by my lovely wife. I'm afraid I would have been less lenient...
Tonight we went to the dazzling "Sanjie Liu" sound and light spectacle. This has 600 local actors of all ages performing in local costumes in a 1 1/2 hour stunning waterbourne world class show on the Li River in front of the illuminated karst scenery. The show was choreographed by Jiang Yimou, famous chinese movie director (e.g. Hero) and also the director of the opening celebration of the upcoming 2008 Olympics. We certainly hadn't seen any performance like this and it comes highly recommended.
Next stop: dragon's backbone rice terraces.
