Day 3: Train to Yangshuo - Sep 22, 2009

(written on the overnight train, typed later)... We were supposed to arrive at 6.30am, but two hours later I'm still listening to Tomic telling us that it will "just be another half an hour". For the last two hours his "just another half an hour" has become a running joke :-)

But I'm really quite enjoying the ride. I'm sitting on a little fold-out seat in the corridor, where vendors have been coming up and down selling all sorts of things. One of my favourites last night was the toothbruch man, who gave a 10 minute demonstration in our carriage on how to use a toothbrush. A few of the Chinese were convinced and bought his products - us westerners already had toothbrushes with us :P

This morning we've awoken in beautiful countryside, where I sat eating my cereal watching lush green farms, quaint rural villages and the most interestingly shaped mountains rush past.

9.15am - Hadn't used a bus yet, so after what looked like a manic conversation between Tomic and a couple of guides at the station, we hopped onto a big coach. For some strange reason the Chinese always seem to be yelling at each other, very loudly and with animated hand gestures. I've come to think though that this must be their normal talking manner, because they can't possibly be angry with everyone all of the time.

I jumped into the front seat, and two minutes later was regretting my decision. Our bus driver swerved out into oncoming traffic and just didn't flinch as a great, big truck came hurtling towards us. I thought our driver would duck back into our lane in time, but no, instead the truck moved out of our way, even though we were in his lane! At times when we wanted to overtake, two or three vehicles next to each other would all move out at the same time and overtake together. And all the time, the oncoming traffic would move out of our way. At other times, our bus driver just drove down the other side of the street for great stretches at a time when he easily had space to move back. The driving continued like this for the next hour! There seemed to be no road rules, except maybe "keep to your own side if you want to" and perhaps "beep your horn as much as you can"! However, as concerning as the lack of road rules are, I really had an easy job of being distracted by the scenery - it's hard to even begin to explain, as I've never seen anything like this before. The Chinese call these mountains "karsts", uniquely shaped limestone pinnacles that come from when the area was once an ocean over 190 million years ago. You will have to google them, until you can see my photos when I get home.

So after 25 hours of travelling we finally arrived at our hotel in the centre of Yangshou. Not surprisingly, with the most incredible scenery in the world (yes, it rates number one for scenery in any of the 39 countries I've been to!) this area was the first in China to be appointed as a national tourism area, and now has more than 1.5 million visitors each year. And like any good enterprising nation, China has embraced tourism - this city is jam packed with restaurants, shops and literally hundreds of tourist stalls all selling the same type of souvenirs. One could shop madly here - hand woven silk, fans, hand painted craft and wall hangings, glassware etc etc. But most of us had the feeling that we're going to see these same type of souvenirs everywhere, so are trying to hold off weighing down our bags.

I really didn't expect this level of commercialism in China, even though they're not yet at commercial prices - a two litre bottle of water costs A$0.50c and a good quality meal, like the one I had tonight, crispy duck, rice and a drink cost just under A$6. Everything is so cheap :-)

3.00pm Calligraphy and Painting class - after freshening up in our surprisingly western style room, six of us went to a Chinese calligraphy and painting class, held in a house in a back alley not far from our hotel. We started off learning the 23 basic strokes that make up all of the Chinese characters. The Chinese man then translated our western names into a Chinese version - I ended up with a really nice one, which means "lovely, smiling plum blossum". On a separate piece of parchment he then guided us step-by-step how to make different shades of black to make a plum blossum tree and some bamboo stalks. I thought mine turned out quite well, and later I taped together some toilet roll tubes in which to bring my works of art home! The lady at the reception thought it very clever, but us school teachers are good at things like that :-)

5.00pm Cooking class - from there we dashed (quite used to rushing about now!) to our coooking lesson. This included a trip to the local market to pick up some ingredients, which, though we saw the following we didn't buy these: big, live frogs; a lady gutting small frogs which were still leaping about in the bucket even though they had their insides removed; a whole rabbit being "cooked" by blowtorch (like you do!) and lots of other odd things. Some in our group saw a skinless dog hanging up, but I was too engrossed by the rows of dead chickens hanging off the tables at that point.

Surprisingly the markets didn't turn us off our cooking lesson which was held in a real professional cooking school with individual work stations above a restaurant (read: Chinese version of "professional"). We all joked that we were just free labour to produce food for the restaurant! We prepared and cooked three dishes: 1) pork and vegetable dumplings, 2) a chicken and peanut stir-fry, and 3) a zuchinni and vegetable stir fry. They were all very delicious, with the two stir frys very tasty with special Chinese flavours like ginger, chilli, sesame oil and a type of pepper called "numbing" pepper. I was pleased how neat my dumplings turned out and I obviously really enjoyed eating them too. The only thing with the Chinese food here (both at the cooking school and in most restaurants) is that they seem to use a lot of oil, so if I make it at home I would use half the amount.

8.00pm Cormorant fishing - After eating our own home-made dinner, we went on a noisy boat on the Li River to see the cormorant fishing. They do this at night now as a demonstration for tourists as the fish are attracted to the light on the boat, but normally the fishermen would do this in the day. However I didn't know beforehand how it was done, so I found it a little cruel, as they tie a piece of string around the bottom of the cormorant's neck to stop it swallowing the fish it catches. The fisherman then scoop the bird out of the water with a long pole, and force the bird to open its beak and spit the fish out into a basket. Quite a clever way to catch a fish never-the-less! At the end we went onto the river bank where we got to hold one of the cormorants (for a fee, of course!)