Squeezing in :-) Beautiful waters, hidden between the rock...
The city of Chongqing, in the province of the same name (sometimes spelled ChungKing like in "ChungKing Express") is a truly industrial million-people dwelling. Growing on trading and industry in the interior of China, the cruise on the YangTse (ChangJiang 长江) starts here and that's why I came to Chongqing.
On the small image on the left, one of the most impressive things I've seen on this trip: that guy has a street show with math tricks! He would ask numbers from the audience and multiply them in a second. There may be some trick, like a partner or so, but who cares - the sole fact that you can entertain people there with mathematics surely says something about the culture!
On the right, a small pictoresque old town on the outskirts of the main city, is now converted into postcard-picture, weekend-promenade for the millions of middle class city dwellers, the old houses there renovated and all sorts of shopping and street stalls. There is a temple too (of course!) where you can go ask for luck in love and marriage...
Yep, the Dong people are good at bridges. These have delicate paintings on the upper parts, each clan a different theme. I noticed the elderly people usually spent time in there, maybe the bridge is the most important of their buildings. They speak their own language, and a little Chinese and even less English, so I couldn't really communicate much.. only smiling :-)
The drum towers are the pride of every clan, beautifully decorated, and seemed to act as a meeting spot, as well as a place to linger and contemplate.
I saw this first in a National Geographic magazine from the 80's - and it's pretty much the same now! According to tradition, they don't use any nails, only pieces of wood fitting together. On the right is a water wheel picking up water from the river for agriculture. It has long cups made of - what else - bamboo. The guys on the left are a few Chinese that I met - one tourist from Beijing and a local business man with his cousin. We walked up the hill to see the view - the little Dong villages scattered behind us.
Impressive.. is the only word for these. The Dragon Backbone Terraces, as it is called in Chinese. In Portugal we also have this kind of terraced cultivated fields on the slopes of hills, but here in Longsheng it's so much more in every sense: not a single space is left to cultivate, the terraces stack in tens of them, and are flooded in a controlled way to grow rice. I think I even saw some fishes in the flooded terraces, a relatively common practice in China, they got to make the best of whatever terrain they have :-)
This village is in a part of the famous Longsheng Terraces, the mountains cut in terraces for growing rice. This lady is a Yao woman, a people sharing this area of northern Guangxi with other so called national minorities. They do try to keep their folclore and tradition, and the surge in tourism has helped it allright. Being the most reachable by road (this path is possibly being laid in asphalt as I write) the village is focusing on tourism, and perhaps 2 out of 3 houses will serve as inns this summer. However, tradition (or the law?) requests that all buildings are made in wood, thus giving it all a warm, cosy feeling. I stayed in her new inn, the water running just below my window, the smell of pine wood, and she and her sister were very welcoming.
Take a bike ride around Yangshuo and meet China's countryside. The scenery is impressive. The prosperity brought by tourism is a little evident, but the roads are still mud paths with occasional colourful graves, and everyone is very happy to see you. Yangshuo city in itself is just a tourist mecca, full of pubs, hotels, marketplaces, living off tourism. Young people from all over come to teach and learn English, have fun, meet other young people. (Kind of reminds me of Antigua, Guatemala, but without the cultural tradition). A great place to party and getting laid, no place to appreciate China. And a world away from the simplicity and beauty of the countryside just around it.
"Nothing more beautiful below Sky and above Earth than the mountains and rivers of Guilin".. so goes the saying. Indeed not far from true, this place is Beautiful.
