1-18-2006
“Western food” in china is nothing to be proud of. I guess it could be classified as bad Chinese food in the States. We woke up after our first night in Yangshuo and all went out for breakfast at a western restaurant. The place was called “Mei You” which means ‘don’t have’ in Chinese. The sign continued to say ‘don’t have lousy food, warm beer, rip offs…’ etc and was a joke about other places in china. I had the ‘American Special’, which consisted of Hash browns, scrambled eggs, and sausage, which was really more like sliced ham. Nobody got sick from the breakfast, but Barbara didn’t do so well with the ‘Mexican food’ from the night before. I guess, when in Rome, do as the Romans, or something like that. After breakfast, we took a little rest, and I had a little time to organize my pictures and decide what to put online. I’ve now collected a large number of pictures from the trip and will make a special gallery for it when I get home.
After our little rest, Audrey Dan Gina and I went on a ‘bike ride’. For me it was really a bike ride, as I rented a very rickety, but full suspension ‘giant’ brand bike. The others however got little electric bikes that could do 30km/hr and looked like mini vespas. I was able to keep up with the electric bikes no problem, but it was a bit difficult at times. It was a good thing they slowed down quite a bit going up hill. We got the bikes on the walking street downtown Yangshuo and took them across the river and into the countryside. We first cam across this old falling apart factory of some sort, the windows were broken and parts of the building were falling down, but it was still in production. We took a few pictures, as it was the first place we stopped, Dan looked around a bit and told us to follow so we did. He took us to this sheer cliff, and said watch out as we got within about 15 feet of the edge. The brakes on all of the bikes were not so good so 15 feet of ‘watch out’ was cutting it a little close. I got some good pictures of everyone and the view was spectacular. The mountains in this region of the world were amazing, and seem to be quite unique. Next we got back on our bikes, and went down the road a bit more. Audrey wanted to go somewhere where ‘there are no cars’ so he found this little tiny dirt road and said ‘lets go this way’. Gina Audrey and I kind of looked at him funny and then just followed. He led us through this little group of farmhouses and animals. At a few points we were riding along the top these little dirt levees between two fields. They were quite muddy and very slippery at points. Eventually we cam eto this little tiny lake with a set of houses on the other side. Dan wanted to go left into the farm fields, and Audrey followed, but Audrey slipped a little and ran into and broke down a stick of a bamboo fence. There was a loud crack sound and someone told us that the road was the other way in Chinese. Dan and Audrey had a little trouble turning around their bikes, but they figured it out eventually. Eventually we found this place called Lin’s Café. It was identified by a sign and an overhead bridge thing to go under as we went down a little hill, but it was not so clear where the café actually was. We had to park our bikes at the bottom, as there was a large stone staircase with eroded dirt on either side leading down to a concrete dam on a small river. The waster level was quite low, and there were pieces of bamboo to be made into rafts lying around. The little lake created was just big enough to show a complete reflection of the mountain at the other end and I got one of my favorite pictures from the trip. We walked across the dam and found the entrance to Lin’s Café. It was across a large field filled with free-range chickens and a puppy. Inside there was a man with his young son, who like so many other people in china, like to stare. The man fed the largest of the chickens a large worm, and it ran off with all the other chickens chasing. We didn’t purchase anything at the café as there was nobody really working in it, and as we started to leave the puppy followed us. The puppy followed us half way across the dam until the man called for him, and he ran back. At this point it was getting a bit late and we needed to get back so Audrey could get on a taxi to start her trip home for school. We took a slightly different route back to the main road and made it there eventually. I was quite scared of my bike at this point because the brakes didn’t work very well, and the front and rear leavers were switched, so the right brake was the front wheel, instead of the rear. There were a few hills to climb up on the way back, but I kept up for the most part with the electric scooters.
When we got back from our ride, there was still a bit of time to ride around before we needed to be back for dinner. I didn’t want to go, but the others did, so I turned in my bike, and walked around the town with my mom. We saw much of the very small downtown area of Yangshuo. It’s shaped in sort of a triangle, with one side being the walking street we came in on. The other two sides are busy with traffic, both car and bike traffic, but not so bad compared to the other cities we have been in so far. We came across a few little shops that Barbara poked her head into, including two little shops with antique sewing machines ready to fix or hem clothing on the spot. There was also a good deal of not so good-looking street food, stir-fried on the spot and placed aside to cool and wait for a buyer. Who knows how long they let the food sit there before someone buys it. There were also a few chickens running around the little alley where they were making most of the street food. On our way back I checked prices from a few places for new digital camera batteries, but didn’t end up getting any. Dan told me to be weary of any Chinese batteries. I did however find the mini tripod I’ve been looking for. It has 3 flexible legs about 5 inches long so it can be formed into any needed tabletop shape. Same thing Matt has had for a while and exactly what I’ve been looking for.
We ate our dinner at the hotel’s restaurant, and we had enough people to get our own room. It was again the classic round table with a Lazy Susan in the middle. My dad had the great idea of using the new tripod on the Lazy Susan. I put it on the opposite side of the table aiming across, instead of in the center. This way the resulting video has a dynamic moving background relative to the people sitting at the table. I got about 15 minutes of great footage while we ate our dinner and that was enough time for some of the funny characteristics of some of the people we were with to come out. After we finished our dinner, Audrey had to be on her way. She had to get back home for her audition at school in Hartford.
Audrey was off, and we had nothing to do for the rest of the night, so Gina, Dámaris and I went off to the Internet Café. It was just a few blocks down the walking street from our hotel, and it was the best Internet in china so far. The place was not very obviously an Internet café; it actually was a movie bar of sorts, playing all kinds of movies on a standard projector in the bar, and the sign on the street in small letters said ‘free Internet’. I don’t know what was on the 2nd floor, but the 3rd floor was just a bunch of tables, with low light and Ethernet jacks at each station for people to plug in their laptops. It was a bit cold and isolated, but a waitress came up and took drink orders every once in a while. I plugged in my airport express so we could both sit near the power outlet, and the owner of the place couldn’t believe how much the little device cost. I started to play with Google Earth a little bit, and the owner of the place saw me and thought it was very cool. I set it up on his Chinese laptop and it worked just fine. Frankly I was surprised that Google even let me download the thing, let alone let me login to it from China. I learned a lot about China from this guy as we had a lengthy discussion about Chinese taxes, social status and many other things as compared to how things work in the States. In China, you are taxed as a business at a flat rate depending on the location of the business and how many square feet it is, not by a percentage of your income. Dan and Elita eventually showed up to come take us away for some late night Rice Noodles. We asked for about 15 more minutes of Internet, which turned into 45, but eventually we headed out and got our very tasty noodles. I think the rice noodles were my favorite food to eat in china.