Another travel story continued

It been a while since I pick the rest of my Oct Nov travel in China. This time is Guilin.

My first impression of the city was a little disappointment, I was expecting a world-class tourist city with it famous landscape as the backdrop, and instead the city seems a little old and dusty, nothing too exciting. Yes, I saw a few of the famous limestone mounts scattered around but it is far cry from what I saw on the promotional post cards.

However on my way to my hotel on the public transport, a passage sitting next to me strike up a conversation when he saw me dropping down travel notes in English. He turn out to be a proud native of Guilin returning home to visit his parents from US, he was so enthusiastic to introduce me to all the important sites within the city, even offer to be my tour guide while I was in town. I was grateful for the offer was feeling guilty never took up his offer due to shortage of time.

The hospitalities of the people of Guilin did not stop there, the scenes played out repeatedly thru out my trip, from hotel clerks to tour reservation services, for a solo travelers these little gestures offer a wealth of first hand information of not so frequent sites to visits other than what is in the guide books.

The center city of Guilin turn out to be rather handsome, there were many lakes and streams fed the city center, but I still longing for the majestic landscape that I came to see, after the first day plowing around the city and experienced some top attractions, I woke up early the next morning embark on a countryside tour of the infamous Yunnan rice terraces.

The rice terraces been in existence in this part of Yunnan for centuries; due to lack of flat lands the ancient tribes of Yunnan began farming these mountains and valleys by seer hard work. Fields terraces were built by primitive and hand. Most strips were too narrow to farm even with the help of life stocks. I can see the field’s stretches for miles to the end of the horizon; some were built deep into the valley floors where the river ran thru it. Deep in the valley where local villages built on the ridge of the mountain, there were buildings build on the slop of these steep hill as tall as five stories high, with only a few support of wooden post set deep into the bedrock of the hills side. It was a feast of engineering.

The valley I went to were about 2 hours from the city, along the way I witnessed the impoverish country life of modern China, a sharp contrast from the city living. Disregarding the seemingly modern dwellings people were living in, a step from the front door, the sidewalks were unpaved dirt roads, when our bus passes by it kick up thick fog of dust, the houses and the people on the road side disappeared in an instant. At that moment it was hard to imagine the picturesque landscape images that lure me to take this trip to the countryside. Not to mention the many hair rising death-defining moments spend on those little mountain buses I had to take to get to my destination.

There were many blind spots on curvy country road, and yet our Chinese driver were determined to demonstrate his dared devil driving skill passing every slow moving vehicles in front of him, as if he was racing on the Indy 500 race course. His reckless behavior, disregarding the safety of the road rules came to many close calls.

Unfortunately, as the only solo travelers I often got the scenic front role seats next to the driver. Along the journey I had to hold tight to my seat with my eye close, sweat profusely and pray that I would survive another passes. Added to the dangerous situation, it rained the night before many section of the road wee filled with mud washed down from the hill, and the bus was overloaded can barely climb some of the steep hills. There were no seatbelt to strap on, if you were lucky to have one, it usually does work anyway. It was a miracle that my plant was dry when I finally reach the destination.

Finally we reached our destination, although we were not even in the depth of the valleys, we can see the beautiful rice terrace as soon as we got off the bus. The nature guide warned it would be an hour and a half up hill walk, we must take it easy because we are at almost 5000 meter elevation and the air was thin.

In my group, there was a short little old lady, judging on her age and the way she dressed, her age must be in the 80s. She wore simple traditional blue cotton cloth from the Mao era, a simple wide brim straw hat, her leg was in a little U shape, perhaps a result of arthritis or life time of hard work. I saw no difficulties on her, and show no sign of pain or tireless, however, she had a slight swaying from side to side. On her feet, she did not have the protection of our name brand hiking boots, but simple pleasant cotton fabric shoes wore by most rural area Chinese. She also carried an orange plastic bags fill with fruit she must have purchased from the roadside villagers from the last brief stop.

The guide told her there were sedan chair available to carry her up to the top of the hill for a small cost, her son and her family also urges her to take the sedan chair that was available but she stubbornly refused repeatedly, and march on up the hill head up like a proud pioneer as she must had been in her youth. We just need a red ban put on her arm she would be ready for the long march.

At the beginning on the foot hill, many younger travelers stopping along the way admiring the vista and taking snap shots, plus a chance to catch up on their breath. As time goes by, the distance between the youth and the middle age travelers began to widens, 40 minutes into the up hill climb even the younger tourists began to slow down. As the top of the hill was in sight, out of the blue that fragile little old lady we saw earlier, charging from behind, weaving in and out of the slower travelers, leading the pack to an undisputed finish. It was a sight to see; especially some of the traveler’s one third of her age were still struggling up the mountain path up the steep hill even with the help of the walking stick and stops. How did she do it? What an amazing strength and endurance she had. It was amazing to see her flawless maneuvering on the narrow mountain path as if she was born to climb. I was speechless and breathless at the same time.

I took pride on my health and strength, however compare to power and endurance of that old lady I met on the hill of the rice terrace, I am not even came close to her league. I is true we should never judge a book by it’s cover, in the case of this little fragile lady, she is like a century old dusty old books on the shelf, we were taught to always handle it with care, turn out she possess the strength of steel. I am humbled. 

Chance Encounter Yunnan