My pride and joy
I am writing this in my notebook in a guesthouse in Hutian Village (click to see a map of my progress). There is no internet access here, so I will have to wait until tomorrow to blog.
I spent 31 yuan today, only $4.60 CAD. 20 was for the guesthouse, 2.5 for breakfast, 4.5 for some emergency food to keep in my pack, and 4 on an iced tea that I just bought on my way home. Here is how I did it.
I woke up this morning seeing my breath steam in the air when I stuck my head out of the covers. As I left Ningxiang, the fish ponds were covered in ice and there were white fringes of frost on the cabbages. The sun and some steep hills soon warmed me up.
I passed through coal mining country in the morning, first through Coal Bank, then through a little village on a mountain top called Dacheng. I stopped in Dacheng for a haircut. Over a cup of tea with the hairdresser and his family, his sister joked that his nose was almost as big as mine. "The truth is, I am of mixed blood," he said solemnly. "My mother is from here but my father... he was from Coal Bank!." Despite my protests, they refused the 6 yuan payment for the haircut.
I spent 31 yuan today, only $4.60 CAD. 20 was for the guesthouse, 2.5 for breakfast, 4.5 for some emergency food to keep in my pack, and 4 on an iced tea that I just bought on my way home. Here is how I did it.
I woke up this morning seeing my breath steam in the air when I stuck my head out of the covers. As I left Ningxiang, the fish ponds were covered in ice and there were white fringes of frost on the cabbages. The sun and some steep hills soon warmed me up.
I passed through coal mining country in the morning, first through Coal Bank, then through a little village on a mountain top called Dacheng. I stopped in Dacheng for a haircut. Over a cup of tea with the hairdresser and his family, his sister joked that his nose was almost as big as mine. "The truth is, I am of mixed blood," he said solemnly. "My mother is from here but my father... he was from Coal Bank!." Despite my protests, they refused the 6 yuan payment for the haircut.
The road to Laoliangcang
Around noon I emerged from a narrow gorge into the broad valley of Laoliangcang, or "old granary." I was hungry, and soon came by what looked like a restaurant. A group of musicians was playing loud folk music nearby a cluster of tables. I stopped and asked a young woman in white if this was a restaurant. She answered no, but asked me to sit down and eat with them.
Pretty soon, I realized something strange was going on. First, if this was not a restaurant, what were so many people doing here? Second, why were we eating so much meat? Country people usually eat mostly vegetables, but here was chicken, fish, tripe, and big slabs of pork fat. Finally, not only my host but also a number of others were wearing white clothes, scarves and headbands.
As the musicians trouped around the tables, my host saw my puzzled face and asked, "Do you know what's going on here?" I did not.
"Well," she said, "my grandmother just died."
I had just crashed a funeral.
Wedding, funeral or birth?
"Don't worry about it," she said smiling, "eat!"
In that phrase, she may have summed up the philosophy of many of the people I have met over the last couple of days.
I didn't take any pictures, but I caught this procession marching across the rice fields to crashing gongs and drums later in the day. The yellow stripe is a giant dragon puppet.
In the early afternoon, I chatted with a man on a motorbike advised me not to take the main road south because it was rough and potholed. He pointed me to a side road that would lead me through the rice fields to the east. It meant leaving the comfortable milestones of the highway behind, but as the Chinese saying goes: "Listen to advice and you'll always eat well."
Sure enough, he was right. The side road was smooth, even, and lead me straight south through tiny villages and rice paddies brown with dead cut stocks.
In that phrase, she may have summed up the philosophy of many of the people I have met over the last couple of days.
I didn't take any pictures, but I caught this procession marching across the rice fields to crashing gongs and drums later in the day. The yellow stripe is a giant dragon puppet.
In the early afternoon, I chatted with a man on a motorbike advised me not to take the main road south because it was rough and potholed. He pointed me to a side road that would lead me through the rice fields to the east. It meant leaving the comfortable milestones of the highway behind, but as the Chinese saying goes: "Listen to advice and you'll always eat well."
Sure enough, he was right. The side road was smooth, even, and lead me straight south through tiny villages and rice paddies brown with dead cut stocks.
A farmhouse
As the sun dropped, however, I was still in the middle of nowhere, near the ominously named "Shadow Mountain." My last hour of biking was a quadricep breaking climb up a pass, and then a spiraling drop into the next valley where at last I found a guesthouse just as the sun set.
I met Ms. Zhou as soon as I had put my things away in my room and walked out the door. She is 23, with a one year old boy. She invited me back to her house to meet her family and have dinner. Her house, like, most of the farmhouses I've passed, was big but bare. A few posters adorned the thin concrete walls.
The family sat around a wooden card table with a blanket draped over top and a heater underneath. Everyone sticks their feet and hands under the table to warm up.
Her husband gave me a nut, which further research tells me was called an areca, to chew. It tasted like a cross between a cinnamon stick, a piece of mint gum, and a shot of vodka. It also made me feel slightly like I was choking. Ms. Zhou told me it is slightly intoxicating, but I didn't chew it long enough to find out.
I met Ms. Zhou as soon as I had put my things away in my room and walked out the door. She is 23, with a one year old boy. She invited me back to her house to meet her family and have dinner. Her house, like, most of the farmhouses I've passed, was big but bare. A few posters adorned the thin concrete walls.
The family sat around a wooden card table with a blanket draped over top and a heater underneath. Everyone sticks their feet and hands under the table to warm up.
Her husband gave me a nut, which further research tells me was called an areca, to chew. It tasted like a cross between a cinnamon stick, a piece of mint gum, and a shot of vodka. It also made me feel slightly like I was choking. Ms. Zhou told me it is slightly intoxicating, but I didn't chew it long enough to find out.
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