Ride the wave where it takes you

So there it is.... 18 months in China and with a blink of an eye it's all over. It's hard saying goodbye to this country and all the wonderful people who have impacted my life here.  All the people, places, and experiences there now only occupy a part of my mind. One door closes and another one opens for me.... 4 months in Southeast Asia =)

 

Shane and Lissy showing me around Guilin- locals I met on the train

The plan (for now) is to make my way to Hong Kong by land. With only 2 weeks left of my visa here I plan to embrace this country and take in as much as I can before leaving it (potentially for good.) On this 17 hour train ride from Kunming to Guilin (in Guanxi province) I admire the landscape of southern China (rice fields, stone forests, and mountains.) The women next to me nurses her infant. Men chew on sunflower seeds while playing a game of cards.  A young girl slurps her bowl of noodles whilst staring at me, this strange foreigner. 

 Freedom .. what an amazing feeling.  With only my backpack, my mind, my heart, and my trust in the universe I could go in any direction from here.

The Sun and Moon Pagoda in Guilin

 First stop: Guilin

Guilin is a place filled with charm and culture, and of course chaos and pollution (as most medium-large Chinese cities go.) However, I still found it nice and relaxing; mainly because of.... well... the freedom.  I spend most of my time here wandering the streets taking in the sights; men practicing tai chi,  elderly doing calligraphy, and the women dancing in the park with a smile on their face and a fan in one hand.  Many different forms of art that I take the time to watch.  All things I could see regularly in Kunming but after awhile became normal, or that I was too busy to even care.


children warming up before their tae kwondo class

During my travels I try and get off the beaten path when I can, while still trying to play it safe. I read about Jiangtouzhou in a travel guide, a fascinating 1,000 year old village whose 800 inhabitants are all surnamed Zhou. A place only 25 km away from Guilin which somehow or another took me over 3 hours to get to. 3 buses, a motorbike, and a short hike  later I finally reach this ancient place.


preparing for dinner in the village



After a few kilometers out of town the bus stops begin to disappear and the bus driver only stops when the passengers advise him to.  Just as I began to wonder how on earth I was ever going to find this place, the lady next to me turned to me and asked where I was going.  She told me that she lives close to this village and could take me. As I normally don’t trust people this easily, something told me that this lady with her 6 month old baby were completely harmless.

 The lady wrapped her infant in a cloth around the front of her and I hopped on the back of her scooter.  We drove through the beautiful countryside only seeing a few farmers along the way.
After a short ride, she dropped me off at the entrance and I took a walk around this ancient place.



from the top of a house in Jiangtouzhou






  The following day, I headed up to the Dragonback Rice Terraces. Although it is not the season to go (the best time being when the fields are filled with water) I still found it pretty remarkable. I met some girls from Spain and we hiked together to the top of the terraces and spent the night.

even the ladies of the minority group must stay connected somehow.

The following morning the girls headed back to Guilin early, but I was feeling up for an adventure and decided to stay at the terraces. I hiked 5 hours through the rice fields to the next village (where there would supposedly be a bus back to Guilin.)

Dragonback Rice Terraces

 The walk was a little quiet passing only a few local ladies all offering to be my guide. (All the signs have been taken down by the local people as a way to lure hikers into paying them to show you the way.)  I somehow managed to finish the hike on my own only to find out there is no bus out of the village that day because of a landslide.

hiking con las chicas de Espana

 While traveling, people appear out of nowhere just when you are about to have a mini breakdown/panic attack/ or other "now what the hell do I do?" moments.  This is when I met Mark & Anna, siblings from Germany, who were likely in the same situation.  We ended up paying a local guy to take us down to the mountain where the slide happened.  We had to hike for about an hour around this landslide to get the bus back to Guilin. The three of us ended up traveling together for the following 4 days.  

Mark and Anna from Germany in Yangshou

We left the city of Guilin and headed to Yangshou, a cozy little mountain town.  Loads of Chinese tourists flock here on the weekend which unfortunately changes the feel of this place; the charm and authenticity of this place are slightly lost.  You can understand why so many people come here.  The karst mountains, that surround this town, make the scenery seem so surreal.  The mountains in the area are the scenery used in many famous Chinese paintings and the back of the 20 yuan bill. 

the 20 yuan bill

I spent 4 days exploring these mountains; boating, hiking, biking, and cruising around on a motorcycle.  After 4 days you reach a point where the mountains around you just aren't as spectacular as they were when you first came. Time to move on...

on the bamboo raft

Since I started traveling through China I have grown to appreciate this place even more. Viewing China through the eyes of other travelers has shown me just how far I have come with this place. Their one or two bad experiences in their few weeks of traveling have allowed them to completely write off this place.

 

painting fans on the street of Yangshou

 I remember being in their position many times, and now I can look back at that and what I had to do to adapt to the most chaotic, disorderly, and uncivilized place I have ever been to. So this place pushes me, tests me, and takes me out of my comfort zone more and farther than I'd like sometimes. However, there is something to gain from that. This place will make you go crazy, if you let it. Or it can offer you so much, if you let it. You can accept it for what it is. You can’t change this place but it will certainly change you. I’ve had to adapt, overcome challenges, change my perspective in order to be okay with surviving in a place like this. 

 

calligraphy; a popular form of art amongst many Chinese

  Coming here with a closed mind will only leave you to suffer from the indifferences and difficulties trying to adapt to such a crazy place.  You can try to understand it all you can, but no matter if you are here for a few weeks or a few years I’m not quite sure any Westerner can fully understand this place. Just when you think you are about to figure something out, something comes up that makes you realize you aren’t even close.. It leaves you only wanting more (well at least for me)

This place has helped my mind expand . It helped me not only learn a lot about another culture (a culture that consists of nearly 1/3 of this world's population), but also to learn a lot about my own.

 

Chinese families are revolved around their one child (or grandchild)

Next: Hong Kong