Budget: 450 Yuan/$75; Spent: Yuan/$
Patty here.
Started out the day with a nice/cheap breakfast from our hostel’s restaurant a block from where we’re staying. We had the usual bacon, eggs and toast. The cost came out to 40Yuan total which is $6.70CDN. The meals both included coffees and orange juice so a great deal overall especially since we are watching our expenses closely during our last few days on mainland China. We are over our budget for China by $150 CDN total. We’re thinking we likely won’t hit our goal but if we can get it within $100 we’ll be happy.
After breakfast we walked down some vending stalls with locals selling souvenirs. I came across a nice scarf and bartered it down to 20Yuan (~$3CDN). Afterwards we made our way down to Li River where the boats dock for short cruises down the river. There were stalls lined up near here but nothing caught my eye until our way back when we came across a fine looking little glass turtle which reminded me of my sister Franklin who we affectionately call a “turtle”. A sweet old man was selling it. He was asking for 6Yuan for it. We weren’t going to buy it and even started walking away because in the end what is my sister really going to do with this little glass turtle, as cute as it was. Then we walked away feeling bad, mostly because of how nice the man selling it was. We talked about it for a bit and decided it’s not so much about the souvenir as it is about supporting a local trying to make an honest living. As small as our contribution was we felt good about it. We walked back to him, and he smiled. We got a picture with him, and the exchange between us was worth way more than the 6Yuan the turtle cost us.
We walked back to our hostel to drop off some of our stuff and decided to head back out for a bike ride. The bike rental place is only a short 5 minute walk away from our hostel. We managed to barter the price down to 35Yuan for the whole day for a double bike. Neither of us had ever ridden a bicycle for two before so we were pretty excited, well at least I was. Here’s Jeff with our cute little bicycle before we embarked on our little trip:
Jeff took the front seat and I got the back seat with the much better view I must say. It was really weird not seeing what was ahead and not really being in control of where we were going, but I got used to it. There were a couple times though, going through mud, puddles, and pebbly paths that it was little worrying, but Jeff was like a professional double bicycle rider so it was all okay!
We were advised by the hostel of two nice paths to take with our bike. One was about a 3-4 hour ride which was the one we wanted to do, and the other was along the Li River. We’re still not sure if we found the right path because most of the path we went down was unpaved, and it ran mostly through a residential area and farmland. The ride was nice though, the karst mountains in the background with Pomelo trees and what looked like Orange trees in the foreground were beautiful. We got some really nice pictures. We sang many silly songs and many renditions to each other most of the ride, which was fun, but eventually got slightly irritating especially when we couldn’t get the songs out of our heads!
Ultimately we figured we had gotten on the wrong path so we headed back to the river and rode down the paved road all along the Li River. The area of Xingping is famous for its view of the Karst Mountains on the 20Yuan bill. Luckily, we accidentally came across the actual site on the bill. Some very sweet locals who were already taking a picture of it with a 20Y bill lent us their bill and took a picture for us.
Here’s another photo with a panoramic view of where we were standing in this picture. Pity it wasn’t sunnier today and unfortunately probably won’t be for the remainder of our time here:
We are really beginning to become fond of the people here. Particularly in Southern China, we have found the people to be very laid-back and good-natured. Everywhere you go here, you feel safe, like everyone is just going about their daily business. It’s comforting. No doubt we will have to change our mentality again once we get to Vietnam and India where we’ll need to get our guards up again. But ask anybody and they will tell you China is very safe.
After our bike ride we went back to our hostel to have something to drink. We ordered a pot of chrysanthemum tea to share. It came out to 10Y and was without a doubt the best tea I have ever had. No wonder the Chinese are famous for their tea. I’m normally not a huge fan of tea, and will usually choose coffee over tea, but this tea opened my eyes to a whole new world of beverages. And, it’s supposed to have numerous healthy benefits as most teas in China are. It’s supposed to clear your skin, prevent illness particularly in the throat area as well as preventing certain types of cancer… these benefits have yet to be backed up by scientific evidence though.
We did some reading after our tea party, and then it was dinner time. We headed to our hostel’s restaurant again, and had some more Chinese cuisine. It was as delicious tonight it was last night. The spring rolls were amazing. They tasted a little different than the ones at home. Jeff said they reminded him of tacos kind of, and I would agree. The batter was much grainier and tasted homemade. We ordered two other dishes one was called Gunpao which was a chicken stirfry with peanuts, green and red peppers, onions, and these red chilis. And the other dish was a black pepper beef stir fry with onions and red peppers and get this, steamed broccoli! We haven’t had anything steamed here since arriving so that was nice. The sauces in both made the dishes were quite different from each other but both were very very good.
After dinner, we relaxed a bit, cleaned ourselves up and went down to watch two movies on big projector in the communal area of our lobby. We watched Ted and Ocean’s 12. We enjoyed both, and it kind of made us feel at home here. We are missing home more and more but we’re so happy to be on this trip. It’s a mixed bag of emotions naturally.
Anyways, that’s all for today. Hope all is well with everybody.
Patty
No comments:
Post a Comment