Clarification (?)

Just to clarify what is going on on this blog - we have in fact now been in Australia for 2 weeks, but due to lack of time and access in China we are still catching up with our Chinese adventures. At the beginning of the blog there are some text entries describing our travels written at the time, but the photos could not be added. I have therefore been adding them now that we are in Australia and some more descriptions for the later part of our Chinese travels.

We are staying in Castlemaine, Victoria with Liz's cousin and will be based here until the end of March, making excursions to various other places (now being planned).

I hope you will bear with us while we catch up and then we will start telling you what we are up to in Australia.

7-day Tour of North Guizhou Province - 21st Oct to 27th Oct - Part 1

We signed up for a private tour with our Dutch hostel owner who has lived in China for 10 years and has extensively explored the Guizhou province where we were. Very luxurious and expensive to travel in a new car with a private English speaking guide, but ensured that we were not constantly diverted into souvenir shops which is hard to avoid on standard tours and we could find out and explore a lot more in a short time.

Villages of Dong and Miao people's ethnic minority area. Known for their 'wind and rain bridges' and wooden houses. The wooden bridges were originally  covered to protect the structure against the weather and then became very central to the community and important for feng shui. Consequently they have become very ornate. Liz and our guide shown inside another one below.

 View from the hill.

All along the river there are water wheels like this that lift water into the rice fields powered by the river itself. They are as ever made all from wood and bamboo. These have been kept in operation for hundreds of years with the same materials still used for replacement parts.

Fancy something for lunch?

Market wares always fresh.

Below: Village centre life. Animals live there too. Another wedding party.

Family/Clan drum tower for meeting and celebration. Second picture shows its amazing interior structure built with no nails.

New house being built below. All prepared in advance and then assembled in frames as a group activity. Mostly done with hand tools, though hand held electric planes are also popular. Only wooden fixings are used. No nails or bolts. Trees all grown and selected on the nearby hills.

Every bit of space used

Herding the animals up and down the steep hills. A slow process, but at least she has a mobile phone these days!

Last minute clean up for a dance performance.

Kids under the local drum tower playing with the bamboo instruments used for traditional performances. Sound of the instuments is quite bagpipe-like. Each one only plays very few notes but in ensemble the sound is quite interesting.

Moved on to Longji area. Famous for its incredibly complex rice terraces covering the hillsides. The hillsides have names like Dragon's backbone, and 5 tigers, inspired by the contours and stripes. (You might need to enlarge the landscape photos to see the terraces properly).

We had to walk about 1 km up a steep hill with our luggage to reach the hotel. As part of the tourist services, ladies some who looked as old as us but half my height can carry your bags for a price in huge baskets slung over their back. Worth every penny. We were cooked just walking up! The baskets are normally used for carrying produce from the fields.

Grandmother of the family who owned our hotel still prefers to live in her old house behind the hotel, in spite of many other rooms being available for her where other family members live. This house is in the traditional style - rooms on the upper floor and space below for produce and animals. Our own rooms were in the new wooden hotel and very luxurious. (Our guide knows the family very well. We were not just snooping in people's houses).

Some of our neighbours.

Yangshuo, South China - October 12th to 20th

Yangshuo near Guilin in south China was where we met up with Oliver and Shasha again. Famous tourist spot for the unique 'Karst' hills of that area and lovely rural scenery. Still within the Chinese holiday period, so very crowded with coach loads of Chinese tourists arriving every day and masses of sellers and touts. Fortunately the most important thing for Chinese tourists seems to be to pose in front of famous sights and not much else, so it is quite easy to get away from the crowd.

We stayed first in 'Moon Village' which takes its name from the moon shaped hole in the nearby hill. Favourite local activities include cycling and going on the river in bamboo rafts.


Yangshuo street, before the coaches arrive and Moon Village with Moon Hill in the background.

Below: The karsts. Limestone hills that shoot straight up out of the plain with rivers running around their bases. These can be seen over a large area around, but Yangshuo is the most famous being built right in amongst them.

Local village typical streets with mix of old wooden houses and new concrete ones.

River trips on a bamboo raft. Motorised for longer distances. You could even have your  lunch from food prepared on shingle banks in the middle of the river. Later we had a punted one starting from the 'dragon bridge' that was very pleasant and peaceful. They are punted down river and even over wiers and then taken back upstream on a truck.

What bamboo rafts are really meant for and typical small scale raised bed production and bamboos in the background. 

Hostel we moved to after O&S returned to Shanghai. Further away from the tourism. Very restful whilst I was still recovering from my bug. Eventually I went to the local Chinese medicine practitioner (conventional doctors in rural China not being the first choice, especially with the language barrier). Based on an examination of my hands, tongue and eyes and without much discussion of the symtoms, she prescribed half a litre of disgusting herbal medicine per day for 3 days. I was also told that my liver and lungs needed a tonic. The medicine was prepared that day and presented in plastic drinking water bottles. It looked like black muddy water and tasted much worse. Once I had tried it, I felt quite ill just thinking about having some more. However I did make a very rapid recovery after a day or so and was encouraged to continue drinking it. Since then I have been fine.

Travels After Shanghai - Xian

More backdated pictures from early in our travels in October. Just Liz and I while Oliver and Shasha went to Hong Kong to renew his visa and begin their own holiday.

Settled into the sleeper train to Xian

Gloomy weather around the Xian drum tower.

Some light reading - classic Chinese writings carved in stone.

Some familiar terracotta folk found near Xian.

The very peaceful mosque in the centre of Xian.

Part of the muslim quarter market at Xian.