high lights

08.13.2008-019-china
different kinds of lights in my first hotel in china

Early morning, on the 13th, I board a bus from Hanoi to Nanning in China.

With its well-manicured greenery, China is like a wife right out of Stepford Wives, prim and proper, not a hair out of place.

Nanning has a skyline wider than Chicago. It is a cross between a city and a suburb- skyscrapers scattered everywhere with wide-wide roads, the closest ATM to the multi-level bus station is a $5 cab drive away!

There is even a Walmart Supercenter. And the buses- let me not even go there- somewhere between a sleeper bus and a regular AC bus with the exception that everything works!

My vision of China was a bit more exotic than this (that is still the expectation from Yunan)- certainly the Chinatown that California #1 (SFMUNI) passes through is not based on this part of China.

Suddenly I feel lost without a guidebook. It is not as if I can walk down the backpacker’s ghetto and there will be children selling photocopies for $4. So, I decide to head north to Guilin, where the swiss couple, I met in the bus, is going.

After spending a day in Guilin sampling local food, we take the bus to Longsheng and then embarked on an hour long uphill hike to the village where we were staying for the night – PingAn.

What I love about China (so far) is you don’t have to go too far to escape the city- a 3-4 hour drive away you will land up in a small village, with age old terraces, no vehicles and fresh country air.

Of course, others have discovered this village well before I did. So there is an incessant clamoring of village women, who want to let their 2-3m hair down for a picture or sell hand-embroided goodies. One woman decided to follow me on my 1.5 hour hike and so I start running.

I stop, look back to see if she is still there, and I freeze. Euphoria! A liberating bliss!

It is a visually engaging countryside- the smoke from cooking fires in the village make it almost surreal. Women are on their way home, with a duck in their wooden basket for dinner. Men gather in a local shop to share a beer with their friends.

A teenager decked up in local finery approaches me and asks if I know why this place is called Seven Stars and the Moon. I say no. She goes on to show me the terraces- the seven stars and the moon.
I sit and sip on my ginger and fruit infusion tea and take in the view.

I have a one-year multiple entry visa to China!! And my first sentence in Mandarin was understood! And did I mention I am going to the Olympics?

I will be aboard my first train in China for no less than 27 hours on a hard seat (sleepers sold out) in about two hours from now.
yes, I am headed to Beijing- to the Olympics :)

I am already loving this country!