TV celeb

Tim was in the TV news this week. It was very exciting to see him on our TV screen in Shanghai. While he was on a plane flying back from ChongQing I watched him give a speech to about 2000 of his closest friends and shovel a bit of dirt. Tim is involved in a huge building project in ChongQing and last week was the second of three ground breaking ceremonies that will happen with regard to this project.

Mr. Zheng picked him up at the airport and said..."Sir, I saw you on TV". I think that is the longest English sentence that he has ever spoken to either of us. Xiao Zhang was also very excited and called her parents in Chengdu so they could see him also.

Day 4 Miao Village in Basha

I don't think I have gotten anything productive accomplished this week except load pictures on this blog. Next time we are going to have to go on shorter trips!

This day we left our hotel early and drove to about one hour to a village in Basha. This village is the only village in the whole country that is allowed to have guns. They are really old guns but I was really surprised when I read about our trip that anyone could legally have possession of a gun in China. This village was not my favorite....a little too "touristy". However it was still interesting to hear about their traditions.

In most of the villages we visited it was the woman's clothing that was most interesting. At this village it was the men that were intriguing. At first glance it looks like they are wearing plastic clothing. However this is really fabric that is dyed with indigo and then a mixture containing egg white is brushed onto the fabric and pounded with a large wooden mallet for hours. After it is pounded it has a shiny surface.
We entered the village and they demonstrated how they use their guns. The village is very peaceful and we were expecting to have a nice quite hike. Unfortunately there was a large tourist group ahead of us and the tour guide had a loud speaker that she insisted on using to blast her voice through out the village.

Cute girls in their traditional clothing.

The men with guns did a dance for us that was really funny. It looked like a really bad choreographer had been to the village and staged some sort of show. I am pretty sure that is not how they really dance.

We walked on and tried to stay far away with the lady and the mega voice box.

No mater where we go in China we love the kids.

Tim took these pictures. These little guys are about 3 or 4 years old.

Here they are writing in their notebooks.

This was the picture of the day. What cuties!

The men in this village still wear their hair in a "top knot" that was popular back in one of the old dynasties. It is maybe hard to tell but this guy is getting his hair cut with a sickle. Yikes!

The little kids work really hard....

This little guy was about 4 years old.

These are the rice farms for the village

This is a pig pen...see the pig sticking his head out of the top

The lady in the yellow is the microphone lady. AARRRGGGG!
This village or "clan" worship trees. The villagers are kneeling down to the tree. When someone dies they put the body in the ground and then smooth the earth flat so it is not apparent that there is a grave there. Then then plant a tree at that spot. They believe that the spirit of the body goes into the tree. They also believe that if you cut down a tree you could be cutting into someones soul.

More dancing...

The women's skirts are made with fabric that has been pleated with tiny tiny pleats. Here we saw the skirts drying on top of baskets.

We were invited into one of the villagers homes. Just outside of their home a little neighbor boy (about 3 years old) was setting off firecrackers. He had a punk in one hand and firecrackers in his pocket. He was throwing them onto the walking path in front of us. We were sure he was going hurt himself. Ah...us westerners are so protective of our children.

These are glutinous buns that are dried and then fried like bread.

This is their cook stove and heat for the house. They were cooking rice in the bucket that is on top of the fire.
This is the lady of the house and her children. BTW, minority groups are allowed to have more than one child.
This is the million dollar view from their balcony. Many of the homes in this area have balconies. The ladies use the balconies for sewing.

Poster in the home.

Loom on the balcony

I think this is their bathroom

Bedroom

Bamboo forest

Another view from this village.

All in all we were pretty happy to leave this village. It was a little too "enhanced" for the tour groups. Our guide told us that usually when he visits this village it is very quite because everyone is out working in the fields. This was a special program that they do for holidays when they have a lot of visitors.

We returned to ChongMing for lunch and then drove two hours to another village.

Day 3 travel to Cong Jiang

On the road again.

This is the view from my seat in the bus. I shared a seat with Natalie in the very back row. I think our bums were out of the seat more than they were on the seat because of the bumpy roads.
We knew this was going to be a long driving day. The itinerary said we had a six hour drive and we would visit one village on the way.

The weather was still cold and gray....but the scenery was pretty.

About one hour into our drive we arrived at the Xin Qiao village. This village is known for its floating grain storage barns and for their "mini skirts". I think this is what convinced our guys to come on this trip. ha ha Unfortunately....the weather was so cold no one in their right mind would be wearing a mini skirt without many layers of leggings. And...our guide told us when we got there that only the older ladies wear mini skirts. The younger generation wear jeans now.

Natalie and Shelly giving the kids bags of "goodies".

When we were in Tibet the first time, the little kids asked us for "bi" which means pen or pencil. It almost broke my heart. It was a very simple request and I thought about how many pens and pencils we have laying around our house that I take for granted. So.....now we always take paper note books and pens with us for the children. This little guy was so happy and soooooo cute!

Floating Grain Storage Barns
They are floating to keep the rats out of the grain and to protect them from fire.

Walking through the village....note the beautiful stone path

Someone did their math problems on the wall....we saw this many times during our trip.

Our guide spoke with a young couple living in this home. They were newly married and invited us in to see their house. They live in this house with the boys parents.

The main floor is the cooking area.....and...
pig storage.....
cooking supplies

Small market in the village

daily life

Tim had to take a picture of this.....HP computer, abacus, and a calculator.

Back on the bus......many miles to go

My seat partner.....

Many hours later we arrived at the top of this mountain and our bus broke down. Not Kidding!

We had been delayed by two road accidents. One was a bad car accident, and one was a worse motorcycle accident. As you can imagine these were both a bit upsetting. There are no emergency response teams for this type of thing in China. Thank goodness we arrived on the scene after the victims had been taken down the mountain to the hospital.

There were a group of motorcycles parked on the side of the road when we stopped for one of the accidents. Tim took this picture because if you look close....there is a live duck tied onto the back of the bike just above the rear fender. Have duck...will travel!

So...our bus broke down on the top of this mountain. As you can see from the frost on the bushes it was really cold up there. I had a few panic thought go through my head....they went something like this...if we get stuck up here tonight we are going to freeze to death....a replacement bus will take hours to reach us....we do not have a single blanket in this bus......do we have matches?.....what can we build a fire with?.... Then I took a deep breath and let all those thoughts go....

We walked around for a few minutes and took some great pictures.

Beautiful frosted tree

That's us...at the top of the hill......looking pretty relaxed....

And then....the bus started again!

We drove for another few hours and arrived in a small city....Lunch time!

This is Jason (our GuiZhou guide) helping in the kitchen

This is the head chef for the restaurant

This is the kitchen she was cooking our food in....

There was no heat in this building so they put small fires in metal bowls under the table for us. Amazingly....it felt really good and made us feel a little warmer.

These are two of the dishes that we had for lunch...almost every meal we had a dish with scrambled eggs and onions or tomatoes. Each meal always had at least 5 different dishes plus white rice.

Back on the bus.....we still have a long way to go today.

River transportation

We arrived in Cong Jiang and checked into our hotel. We had been on the bus for 10 + hours. We ate dinner really fast and got back on the bus. Still not kidding!

Our purpose for driving so far in one day was to attend a folk song festival in the Xiao Huang Dong village that night. Just outside of town we got on a very bad road leading to the village....then we had to turn around because it was the wrong road. By this time it is pitch black outside. We made a detour and found the right road. The "new" road was dirt and very bumpy! Ah...something new!
After one hour on this bumpy dark road we arrived at the village. The festival was just starting....it was 9:15pm.

This was not one of the government sanctioned tourist stops. The village is known for their folk songs and put themselves on the map after winning a national competition.
We stood and listened to them for a while and enjoyed thier songs. Did I mention it was really really cold outside?
Every Dong village has at least one drum tower. The towers are really beautiful and are used for "town meetings". This village has three drum towers and we found one that had a big fire. The villagers welcomed us into their circle.
These old guys were enjoying dinner together and drinking a lot of "bai jiu" (very strong rice wine). Know you know how they stay warm!

This guy was really funny....and he thought we were really funny too!

This group of four men sang together. They did not use any instruments...just harmony. It was really something to behold.
Another drum tower was full of men playing their bamboo instruments. While they play they dance around....this was also very interesting. Even though we were cold and it had been a long day it was worth the trip. This was not a show....it was "real life" in action.

Sven (our German friend from our tour) found the third drum tower. There was also a big fire in the center of this drum tower and it was surrounded by a circle of men. He joined them (he speaks very good Mandarin) and shared some Bai Jiu. They sang for him and then he sang a German folk song and a Chinese song for them. What a hoot!

We collected Sven from the fire circle and got back on the bus. AND....THE BUS WOULD NOT START! Really....really....really....NOT KIDDING ! I could not make this stuff up!

We sat in the freezing bus for another hour until our guides made arrangements for transportation back to our hotel. The hardest part......finding two men that had not be drinking at the festival. This was their holiday celebration and none of them were planning to go anywhere!

Two men came forward and we split our group into two. We drove down the mountain in two tiny vans. The vans were actually a much smoother ride than we had all day.

It was a very very long day!