Home again in Shanghai

We arrived in Shanghai late last night after our 8 day trip to rural China. Our first stop was McDonalds...yes...that's right...two Big Mac meals! We ate variations of Chinese food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner all 8 days we were gone. I don't care if I ever eat rice and greens again....EVER! The food was good (most places) but I am just not a fan of mystery meat and greens for every meal. The things I am most happy to have again.....heat....junk food....and a western toilet! My needs are simply.

We really enjoyed our trip. The days were long and the roads were very bumpy but the scenery was spectacular and the people we met were....shall we say priceless!

I will try to share some of our experiences with you through pictures. We had 7 people in our tour plus our guide from Shanghai, our guide from Guizhou and our bus driver. We represented four different countries. Our friends, Shelly, Tom and Natalie were on the tour with us.

Our first day we traveled from Shanghai to Guiyang and then drove to Kaili. The day was long and had unexpected delays because of an accident on the highway. We took the "old road" most of the way and it was in very poor condition. We were supposed to have lunch when we arrived in Kaili but it was getting later and later so we stopped for lunch in a small town along the way. It took several tries to find a place that was open because it was Chinese New Year Day. This is where we stopped.

It was absolutely freezing in the restaurant.

They started a fire in this little stove and if you huddled up to it really close you could feel a little heat. We all took turns snuggling with the stove.

These are bottles of fermented juices.

Our total time in the bus was supposed to be 3 hours this day. When we stopped for lunch we had been on the road for almost 4 hours. As we headed out of this little town our guide told us we still had about 2 hours to go.

We finally arrived in Kaili, checked into our hotel and got back on the bus. About 45 minutes later we arrived at our first village. This village had been "enhanced" for tourists but it was still interesting. Guizhou is one of the poorest provinces in the country. There are many mountains, a lot of rain, and poor road conditions. And it is one of the richest areas for ethnic minority cultures. Many of these cultures still practice traditions from hundreds of years ago. Many of these groups fled into the mountains to escape various wars and other threats to their clans. The government is trying to build an infrastructure to support tourism in this area so the heritage of these groups can be preserved. There is a lot of controversy about the ways and means of achieving and preserving the culture.

This area of China is known for its beautiful ethnic clothing, batiks, and embroidery work. Hmmmm.....I wonder why it popped up on my radar?

This is a piece of batik "in progress". The design is drawn on the fabric with wax. The applicator looks like a pencil with a small well in it. The well is filled with hot wax and creates a very fine line when it is pulled across the fabric.

It takes amazing skill and craftsmen (or women) ship to create these patterns. After the design is drawn in wax the fabric is dyed with indigo. Indigo is a plant that is grown in this area and makes a very dark blue dye. clothing from this clan

Batik fabric after it is dyed.

After we visited the little museum we walked around the village.

On our drive this day we saw many many many stacks of straw that looked like this. These are rice stalks that have been wrapped, dried, and then skewered onto a pole.

More sights from the village.

These little ladies were outside of the museum selling their embroidery pieces. I stopped to look for just a minute before we started our tour through the village. At first there were only three....and then there were more and more....they followed me everywhere I went. When we finished our tour I looked at their fabric pieces and.......well......I did my share to help their economy.

We returned to the hotel and we had about 45 minutes of "free time". I filled the bathtub with warm water and soaked my feet. We were frozen to the bone. After a short "warm up" we walked down the street for dinner.

We ate battered eggplant with meat.

soup with veggies and "meat" and several other dishes including rice.

Natalie, the youngest member of the group, fell asleep while the adults finished dinner.

After dinner we returned to the hotel, put two comforters on our bed and slept in our long underwear. Sometime in the night the room warmed up and it was very comfortable the next morning.