Budget: 450 Yuan/$75; Spent 231 Yuan/$38.50
Patty here.
We had a really wonderful day today. We woke up at 7am to catch the sunrise over the rice terraces. We were hoping it would be a clearer day with no fog. Luckily, unlike yesterday there was no fog, but it was cloudy and softly raining on and off most of the morning. None the less, we managed to get some really nice pictures from a beautiful spot we found along a somewhat hidden path.
Shortly after we arrived at the spot, a nice guy with an umbrella showed up and started chatting with us. He was an Aussie named Cory who had just crossed the border from Vietnam to China by foot the day before after spending 2 months exploring Vietnam… which happens to be the next country we visit. We only got a few pictures of the view before we realized we had been chatting with Cory for about 20 minutes or so and were beginning to get hungry. So, we started to head back to the hostel for breakfast. Cory offered to meet up with us later to give us some more helpful info for our trip to Vietnam, so that was nice. We parted ways at the hostel and Jeff and I had a nice breakfast with a beautiful view of the rice terraces just outside our window and a herd of cows outside our hostel and behind us making their way up the path to the main road. What a different world Duoyishu is. As beautiful as it is, it’s not hard to notice how distant you are from the world as you know it. Chickens, pigs, cows, and dogs co-exist and even get along. They roam the streets along with the tourists, and the locals.
After breakfast, we lingered in the communal area of our hostel relaxing, catching up on world news, and checking e-mails and finally booking the rest of our trip in China. All trains and hostels are now booked! We’ll be staying in some much nicer places from now on… in part by choice but also necessity as Macau and Hong Kong are simply very pricey compared to mainland China. We got a great deal on a 4 star hotel in Macao near the casinos which will no doubt be the nicest accommodations we have seen in a verrrrry long time! Woohoo!! In Hong Kong however, we’ll be back to dorms in a 9bed mixed dorm and shared bathroom, but since we plan on doing some shopping and yes, visiting Hong Kong Disneyland, we’re doing it as cheap as possible… which is still going to cost us $50/night for the beds there! Compare that to the $10/night accommodations we were getting on the mainland and that’s a big big difference.
Lunchtime rolled around pretty quickly, and Jeff and I realized we had spent most of the morning just sitting in our hostel. We ended up getting some soups for lunch and then venturing out and exploring the nearby village. Cory dropped by the hostel and thoughtfully informed us there was market taking place up the hill, but we decided to venture elsewhere. There’s really not much to do around Duoyishu unless you start getting creative and adventurous and just explore the land. Jeff and I realized yesterday that we are both pretty adventurous but in different ways. Jeff loves to climb things whether they are meant to be climbed or not, and he enjoys exploring the land and venturing into uncharted territory. I am simply not good at this, and I am very goal-oriented so if I don’t know where a path will lead, I’m not usually interested in seeing where we’ll end up. We make a good match though, because what I lack in this, I make up for in exploring culture and meeting people. We make a good team.
So, I let Jeff take the lead yesterday and we climbed up an unpaved, muddy path up a nearby mountain that we had no idea would eventually lead to an amazing view of the rice terraces. Here is where the path led us:
That’s a cliff in front of Jeff that overlooks all the rice terraces. We sat there together and just took in the view for a while. We then shared a romantic Snickers bar together and some dried kiwi. It was beautiful.
It started getting kind of cloudy so we were worried the muddy path might get slippery and difficult to climb down, so we made our way down a slightly different way with some challenging spots that were actually kind of nerve-racking. At one point we thought we might need to jump a couple feet to get across a little ditch, but Jeff found us an easier route. There were also some slick spots where we both lost our balance and slid a few inches, but didn’t fall. All in all it was very fun, and definitely took me out of my comfort zone which is what travelling is all about.
Here are some locals going down the mountain with us on our way back, making it look so easy:
After we got back to the hostel we saw Cory there. We were just about to sit down and have a drink with him when a lady came into the hostel asking for directions to Jackie’s Guesthouse. Cory quickly got up and like the nice guy he was, ended up guiding her all the way there. Shortly afterwards he returned to the hostel to get his stuff. He was going to grab lunch at Jackie’s Guesthouse and since we happened to be looking for somewhere different to eat dinner that night we ended up walking with him to see what was on the menu at Jackie’s. We learned that Cory was a non-profit criminal lawyer back in Australia at only the age of 25. He was very knowledgeable and obviously very bright. When we got to Jackie’s Guesthouse, we received a very friendly welcome from the guests staying there and we ended up sitting down for a beer and chatting with them. It was the same group of people Cory had guided there. We sat there chatting for several hours with them, laughing, sharing our travel stories and getting to know each other. We met some incredibly warm people including a very sweet couple from Belgium, Marie Christine and Erwin who began renting the rights to their restaurant so that they could go travelling. They had kids who were around our age who were still at home in Belgium and Marie Christine’s mother at the age of 85 who was according to Erwin their best dishwasher was also back at home. The couple ended up paying for everyone’s beers that afternoon.
Sunset was approaching and we wanted some pictures, but before we left the hostel we were invited to Jackie’s Guesthouse to have dinner with the group we had met so we agreed to meet up again later that evening to have dinner together.
We walked out of the hostel and realized we were standing right in front of a rice terrace which led down the hill to the rest of the rice terraces so we made our way down the mountain and walked along the narrow paths enclosing the terraces. Talk about capping off a really great day and saving the best for last; we got the best pictures and views of our entire trip from here.
Walking along the rice terraces was absolutely amazing. And it was even more amazing that neither of us fell in. We had both prepared ourselves for what we thought would inevitably end with us falling in and getting fully submerged in rice paddy water. Would have made for a great story, but at least we came out of it dry. We were hoping to get further down the mountain, but our time was cut a little bit short due to nature calling… plus it was getting quite dark.
We rushed back up the mountain and prepared ourselves for dinner. We then found our way back to Jackie’s and none of our new friends were anywhere to be found. We were welcomed in by Jackie’s (the guesthouse owner) hospitable mother and also the head chef. Immediately 2 different delicious dishes were brought out for us – a bean dish and a fried pork fat and potatoes dish. Never thought I would enjoy fried pork fat, but it was tasty! Just as the next two dishes were brought out, our friends arrived. We ended up putting two tables together and all 8 of us enjoyed a wonderful meal together. Here we are:
Left (top to bottom): Me, Anja (Switzerland), Lander(Spain), Cory (Australia)
Right (top to bottom): Jeff, Veronika, Erwin, Marie Christine
Anja sitting on my right quit her job working for P&G as a sales rep. We had some good laughs because her old job was very closely related to my old job except we were on opposing sides of the spectrum. She would have been my supplier from whom I bought products and negotiated costing with… basically in our roles we would not have gotten along and likely not been friends!
Marie Christine spoke with her 85 year-old mother on the phone after dinner and she told us that her mother had kept asking “when are you coming home?” But, she and Erwin hadn’t determined an end date to their trip. They had decided they would just go home when they felt like it. After talking with her mother though, you could sense she was sad, and understandably she is in a tough position. I admired them so much for having the courage and will to go travelling despite the difficulty of leaving their family at home. They were such wonderful people and they really set the tone for the group.
At the end of the night we all exchanged names, e-mails, and even blogs.
Overall it was an awesome day.
Patty
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