Ewen Bell's famous China Photography Tour - Part 2

18-22 September 2010

A short internal flight and we're in Yangshuo. The tourist trail has well and truly found this place, the main street is choking with souvenir stands, fisherman pants, "carve your name in 5 minutes" jade stamps, 'antique' Mao memorabilia, pizza stands, hamburger stands and of course tour operators selling trips on the Li River. After big bad Beijing I was quite pleased to be in a town reminiscent of Chiang Mai/Hoi An/Luang Prabang in miniature. Our hotel was the cutest place I've ever seen, the Magnolia Hotel - a little boutique place with open courtyard and upstairs indoor balcony, dark antique wood panels and furniture, just gorgeous. And it had a laundry place across the road!! I actually cried out "laundry!" when I saw it :P

Our cruise on the river was just like the tourist brochures say, stunning. The cruise came complete with cormorant fisherman, unfortunately he'd been tainted by the evil influence of capitalism and this photo cost me Y20 ($5. Exorbitant!)

These guys had gone so far as to hire a couple of the cormorant guys to pose for them with the setting sun in the background. There was a whole tribe them, kitted out with the obligatory embarrassing tourist gear. See exhibit A: umbrella on head.
Ewen had a couple of real treats in store for us in Yangshuo. First was a visit to the Xinping market, a 100% locals-only market in the next village 1hr bus ride away, where we saw cages and cages full of ducks, chickens, rabbits, you name it! Also saw freshly prepared wonton soup, mooncakes being made (had to take a cake mould home, only Y20!), and freshly sliced leg of pork being bbq'd.



The second treat was a cooking class! I'd been taking cooking classes in most countries I visited, and was eager to learn Chinese cooking in China. Eggplant is currently in season, and we learned to cook a mean Yangshuo eggplant dish consisting of thin sticks of eggplant, black bean sauce and chilli sauce all stir fried on high heat, not cooked all the way through so it's not soggy and retains some of its flavour. It was so delicious we nearly fell off our chairs!

Steamed stuffed mushrooms, tofu and eggplant flower

During our stay in Yangshuo we ate our daily breakfast at a cafe around the corner. We also had dinner there once, in a special upstairs VIP room. Of course, true to Chinese tradition, they brought out way too much food which we dutifully did our best to eat, one dish was another fabulous eggplant dish that Yi Ran called "Hidden Dragon". Basically a whole eggplant top & tailed to make a cylinder, cut around it to form a spiral, coated in tempura then fried. The secret is to splash the hot oil into the slits in the eggplant to make it bend outwards, so it looks like the spine of a dragon. My favourite meal in all of China!

Once we'd had enough of tourist town, we took a bus up to the Long Ji rice terraces for some R&R. Unfortunately it started raining that day and the traffic was terrible - one accident had blocked the entire road for miles in either direction. Our driver managed to jig up a deal with a driver on the other side of the crash; we would get off, carry our stuff to the other bus and switch with the passengers on the other side. Easy!

At the bottom of the rice terraces we were greeted by lots of little old ladies who wanted to carry our bags - 5' tall, Yao tribe, extremely loud and obnoxious, wearing traditional clothes and carrying bamboo baskets on their backs. They make their money by carrying tourists' suitcases up to the guesthouses, a good 1hr trek uphill. At only ~Y30 per piece, this is a huge weight off your shoulders (literally) and frees you up to take pictures and just enjoy the hike. The ladies themselves are hilarious - they fight with each other who gets to carry the heaviest bag, it looks like they're gonna get left behind but once you're halfway up the mountain they come skipping along and overtake you, no sweat.

A few of us had come down with a tummy bug and, combined with the rain which made sunrise a bit defunct, used this as an excuse to take a couple of days off and just relax. Not a bad place to relax, given the circumstances :)

The view from my room

"Hello? Yeah I can pick up a loaf of bread. Do we need any milk?"

No ears needed for these glasses

It was refreshing to be in a cooler, less humid climate, to be in the rain, to be able to lie around all day, do some photoshopping/emailing, and not feel pressure to be productive. Just what the body & soul needed :) By the 2nd evening I'd pepped up and was eating generous servings of fries - a surefire sign that I'm on the mend.

Final chapter - Shanghai - coming soon!

x ML