Oct 14-18, 2009
Stayed at the Old Street Youth Hostel in the old town. Located on the narrow, stone pedestrian tourist street, it’s lined with shops and stalls built to the old Huizhou ways. Every region so far has unique architectural elements. This area also has some of the best tea anywhere. We sampled lots and bought the most incredible green tea.
Huangshan is an area long venerated for its otherworldly and romantic mountain, as well as surrounding UNESCO 1000 yr old villages Hongcun et al, and the bamboo forest in Mukeng.
If God rested on the 7th day, he would have whittled away on this granite form, Huangshan (mountain) carved out 40 fantastic granite peaks with whimsical names such as Beginning to Believe Peak, Double Cats catching Mice, Purple Cloud, and Mobile Phone Peak (really). He then would have thrown in rippling brooks, inserted pine trees into the most obscure crevices and cracks and made them grown into impossible places, and shapes.
Immortalized into the Chinese psyche for its beauty, it’s recited in poems, paintings, currency…it’s likely one of the country’s biggest and most expensive draws. It truly, truly is awe-inspiring and it’s no wonder the Chinese see this as the epitome of romance and contemplation. Tho they don’t contemplate here. They make like Tarzans, yelling, in their group herds. Each group has different coloured hats, and follow their megaphoned leader like mice to the cheese. They then dutifully and cheerily line up to take the same shot with the “welcoming pine tree” etc.
Many spend the night up in the mtn in price-gouging, often ratty hotels. For the locals, to witness at dawn, the ghostly mist threading through the peaks, is equivalent to a pilgrimage to Mecca, paying off your 60inch big screen, and shooting a hole in one–all in one go. We escaped these romantics and marched into the solitary and rugged north west Xihai canyon, and found the aching beauty the Chinese love to romanticize about, but won’t tread to. We can see why, its serious and painful work (Andre you’d have sprinted through it).
The bamboo forests at Mukeng are hardly a draw at all. Guess it would be like creating an attraction back home about pine forests. But imagine walking through a forest completely surrounded by just towering bamboos….as far as the eye can see in either direction. You scamper over bamboo steps, you lean over the bamboo fencing (which stop the newly cut trees from shooting all the way down the hillside). The farmers hack the trees down with small handtools, then stack them like hockey sticks. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was partially filmed here, and this was for us a wondrous escape. In fact seeing green and rural China have been oases from the big city smog and pace. Mind you, we’ve yet to see the type of blue sky we’re used to. We imagine we’ll have to go inland, away from the industrial belt to really breathe fresh air.
The village of Hongcun is a massive tourist draw. Again it holds a romantic ideal of a simpler, uncomplicated life for the locals as well as for foreigners. Perhaps we’re villaged out, but we felt the water towns were more interesting. Disappointment here, especially considering the expense and time to traverse here. We seem to be the only non-locals riding the buses, others in the hostel hire out cabs and join tours.
We couldn’t get a timely outbound train and a soft sleeper for our 19hr journey to the border by Hong Kong. So we’ve been chillin’, killing time, reading in the old town and getting massages. Speaking of which, we’ve hit them in every stop but Beijing. They are legit massage places, well at least we weren’t offered nor asked for anything extra. We did hear of a Barcelona woman who was groped at the Best Western spa. Armed with this knowledge, we learned the word ‘prohibited’ in Chinese, which when Trish pronounces it, sounds like ginger.
The Yin Yang cafe with free internet, expensive coffee and doughy pizza has also sustained us. Must mention massive restaurant across the street from hostel. Usually when Chinese restaurants back home and here want to look upscale, they go for size, throw in stone/marble floors, the usual grotty loos, and professional looking hosts. But here, its done over in traditional Huizhou dark wood furniture and latticed windows, stone lions, fish pond, massive steel door with dragon knockers. The staff and hosts wear different uniforms everynite, often period costumes. The budget menu is self serve and is snack and dumpling, and wokpot oriented, but you check off what you want over the kitchen counter and it’s cooked made to order. Trish got a nasty nasty burn handling the table wok. Can you guess who does the cooking home and abroad? Poor monkey. For days I mustered up the courage for fresh turtle soup–cooked and served whole, for $2.45 Cdn (most dinners were anywhere from $4.50 to our splurge at $11.50. Anyway, this restaurant is worth visiting again and again, and so we have.
Favorite food: the chive, pork rice steamed in a bamboo cup, made at the above restaurant.
Favorite bad translation: “No louding”
Favorite delicious irony: The word for modem? Mao.
Next: Hong Kong
