The Case That Wraps the Body

Dragon's Backbone
Our last week in southwest China was a perfect way to end our trip. First we flew to Guilin, heavily advertised for its surrounding scenery, but we didn't care for the city itself. After spending weeks in quaint towns Guilin came off as garish (neon lights everywhere) and skeevy. This feeling wasn't helped when we found out that our hotel room also rented rooms by the hour.

We got out of there the following morning to go a few hours north to an area called the Dragon's Backbone Terraces. The name comes from the endless terraces that cover the steep hillsides and wind their way around all the curves of the valleys. This is the off-season, when the fields are already harvested and cleared, but it was still incredibly beautiful and mind-boggling. Plus, there were far less tourists around. We stayed in a nice village called Ping'an for two nights and spent our time following the trails that follow the terracing, providing views of this engineering feat for as far as you can see. The terracing is so extensive that one day we walked 3 1/2 hours each way and were still constantly surrounded by it. The trail also leads through a few small towns which are inhabited by the Zhong and Yao minority groups. The Yao women are known for their long hair which they grow about 5 feet long; unfortunately for us, they've realized that they are a photo-worthy site and now charge tourists money to unwrap their hair. The Yao, in general, always seemed to be in "sales mode." The other interesting thing about these minorities is the way they construct houses. Using the abundant pine wood, they interlock beams and wood into each other without the use of any nails. Since harvest is over, we got to see a lot of this building going on. While the men built, women, some in their 60s, carried huge logs and materials on their backs up the hills. Overall it was a peaceful visit (although our 7 hour walk was strenuous) and we were definitely glad we made the effort to come.

Yangshuo and a visit from Mr. Harris
Our next, and last, stop was the town of Yangshuo. This backpacker town is touristy, but it was nice to end our time here. We stayed in a hotel that was one of our best this whole trip. We had the softest bed (after many many nights of hard board-like beds) and a clean, hot shower with a rain shower head. Plus a big TV and free DVDs. It felt like a 5-star place to us for about $11.50 a night. The landscape around the town is filled with huge karsts. These are rather bizarre looking limestone mountains that rise suddenly from the earth. They almost look like stand-alone mountains that rise sharply like a cliff rather than gradually sloping up. But they're very cool and almost eerie looking as they recede into the haze. There are two rivers near the town, the Li and the Yulong, and it's popular to ride bikes around the area and in the fields or take boats along the river to enjoy the unique scenery.

After a day of riding bikes through villages and along the river, we had a Thanksgiving dinner of "beer duck" for Chris (because it was the closest thing to turkey) and fried eggplant stuffed with pork for Alex (because it sounded good). For dessert we got delicious apple crumble with vanilla ice cream to have something American. We stayed up late to wait for one of Chris' closest college friends, Brent, who lives in China and flew to meet up with us for a few days. It was awesome to see a familiar, friendly face and to have a chance to catch up with him. He also became our hero by bringing us much needed peanut butter, a cheesy Doritos snack mix, real Tostitos, and even a bottle of legitimate Shiraz. That last surprise really made Alex's month.

We spent two fun, full days with Brent. The first day we went for a boat ride down the Li River. The scenery was incredible and so different from anything we've ever seen. The karsts make it feel like you're in another world. It was also nice to be on the water. We stopped after an hour and a half at a small quaint town and got lunch. Then we decided to hire another boat back to Yangshuo rather than take the bus. The second boat ride was even more peaceful than the first. We saw men using commorants (a type of water bird) to fish, an old tradition that's not practiced much anymore. It is a popular tourist activity to see commorant fishing at night but it was neat to see people doing it as part of their regular lives. When we finally got back to town we had wine, beer, and chips in the room before going out for dinner and then drinks. We spent the rest of the night on a rooftop bar that was filled with Westerners, beer, and weed. It felt sort of like a European frat party but we made a few friends, and had a great time together.

Our second day we rented bikes and rode along the Yulong River in the opposite direction than we'd done before. We got lost many times but that just made it more fun. (Brent's fluent Chinese also helped keep us going in the right direction.) At one point we were able to cross the river at a shallow point at one of the dams. This landed us in the middle of the fields where there was no longer a path and we had to do some exploring to find a trail. Soon after that Chris got a flat back tire. We eventually found a man who fixed it at his house while we watched a women's weightlifting competition on TV. After that adventure we rode the main road back into town. The boys got haircuts and picked up some pizzas and enchiladas. We stayed in to eat and watched DVDs in our room. This felt like such a luxury for us as we haven't really had a "night in" while traveling. We always have to go out to eat and we've never been somewhere with a DVD player.

Goodbye to China and Big Brother
Sadly it is now time to leave China. Both of us have loved our time here and it exceeded our expectations. The aspect that bothered us the most were the human rights abuses and curbs, especially evident in Tibet. Crossing over the border from Nepal, security confiscated people's Lonely Planet Tibet books (because of an intro by the Dalai Lama), LP China books (because Taiwan is treated as a separate country), and thoroughly went through each person's belongings, looking for any sign of Tibetan freedom sympathies. They even went through our journals and cameras.

Alex managed to get through the excellent book, "Out of Mao's Shadow -- the search for the soul of China" by Philip Pan (2008 Economist book of the year). This nonfiction gave great insight into the Communist party's grip on power and its abuses. One of the stories was about a doctor who exposed thecover-up during the SARS epidemic (he was later illegally imprisoned for drawing attention to the Tianamen Sq massacre). While we were in Dali we saw, yet again, he was in the news for exposing another coverup, this one related to H1N1.

Finally, the lack of freedom of press and speech, is everywhere evident (such as how we were blocked access to our blog the entire time). Reading the paper or watching the news is almost comical if the propaganda weren't so effective.

But, overall, we loved China and even got to enjoy, or at least tolerate, it's quirks (the penchant for boy bands, how people talk loud enough to wake the dead, the way the Chinese pose for pictures, etc). We also loved taking note of their attempts at writing things in English. This Chinglish is often funny, surreal, or just plain baffling (such as the title of this blog, for a luggage store). Some others include:

• No allowed to stay unkind things to other people and disturb their rest time after you drink beer (Rule #5 at guesthouse in Tibet)
• Removes horniness (on the label of a skin-whitening cream)
• Then the scenery is that frosty leaves in autum are redder than flowers in February, making visitors forget to leave (on a plaque)
• City branch network of large ants welcome (the only English at an internet cafe)

Now we're heading to Vietnam. From December 1-15 we will be in a small town in the hills north of Hanoi doing volunteer work so we will mostly likely not have access to a computer. We will update when we get back!