« Pam's email story | Main | Photography: The Freaky Westerners »
November 19, 2005
Chinese Dreams
The train ride from Hong Kong’s Hung Hom rail station to Guangzhou East train station was uneventful, expect for the nice British educated Korean banker beside me who was full of friendly conversation. Once officially stepping into China there was about four hours or so to make it to the new Baiyun airport outside of town. I let myself get semi-swindled into a 200 Yuan taxi ride in a late model air-conditioned minivan with the friendly talkitive taxi tout.
My China Southern Airlines flight CX 3331 was pleasantly uneventful. (Some Chinese airlines, specifically China Southern Airlines, have absolutely terrible safety records...surely one of the most dangerous flights of my life.) Upon landing in Nanning I grabbed a one hour, 10 Yuan bus ride into the provincial capital and grabbed a room at the Yinhe Dajiudian hotel opposite the train station. 88 Yuan per night for two nights, what a deal.
First thing Thursday morning I was up and heading for the China International Travel Service office (CITS) to arrange for my Vietnam visa (450 Yuan.) For some silly idea I thought this could be arranged in one day...maybe two tops. They informed me that it would be three days. After spending a few more hours in Nanning it became painfully clear that a side sojourn was in order. Nanning is no tourist mecca. At Gene’s earlier recommendation I was headed for Yangshuo via Gaulin.
Three busses and 130 Yuan later I arrived at Lisa’s Café guesthouse, an ‘institution’ as per the Lonely Planet guide book.
Lisa is a very friendly lady with a quirky sense of humor. While checking in she asked me to please not to steal away her beautiful waitresses to America. “I’ll try...but no promises.” The staff is generally really nice. Lisa even has an Ethernet cable to hook up my laptop to her ADSL line, which is a convenience totally not expected from an inexpensive guesthouse in rural China.
The next day while uploading pictures and writing this blog entry, ‘Apple’ came at sat with me for a while. We worked on her English by discussing my trip through China, my charity work with Child’s Dream and Animal Care Payam, religion (Christianity) and Daoism. Heavy stuff, really. Lisa asked me also to write Lonely Planet an email pointing out all the inaccuracies in the Yongshuo section of their China edition. Yes, ma’am!
Today I went for a walkabout through town. The nearness of the steep-but-small mountains is really striking. Check out the picture gallery if you have a moment.
After wandering about town I went down to the Li River where a group (extended family?) of Chinese people took an interest in me for some odd reason. While photographing the river and mountains it became clear that many people were gawking at me—-one was unashamedly taking my photograph. I smiled into the camera. Next a young boy walked up and said ‘Hello’ and indicated that he wanted his photograph take with me. Two dozen photos later and the entire group had their pictures taken with ‘that savagely handsome western man’. (My Mandarin is a little rusty, so they could have been saying ‘that geeky, unshaven freak with small elbows’.)
Posted by stu at November 19, 2005 12:50 PM