Day 2 Xijiang Village

The internet was running very slow yesterday. In my last post it took six minutes to load one picture. I hope it is faster today.

We left Kaili early on day 2 of our trip and drove about 2 hours to Xijiang which is a Miao Village. Miao is pronounced like the sound a cat makes. This is the largest Miao Village in China. It has also been "enhanced" for tourists so we were a bit disappointed when we arrived. Our guide told us that "they"had reconstructed the main street of the village and when they did, four bridges were added to the small river that passes through the main area of the village. The bridges are beautiful but they are not part of the Miao culture....they are part of the Dong culture, a different ethnic minority group. We all found this to be very funny.

Side note: As I mentioned before this area is one of the poorest provinces in China. One way to help the economy is to focus on tourism because it is too difficult to navigate the mountains for other types of industry. This is the controversy....will tourism help the economy and there for save the culture of the area giving the young people a reason to stay in their home villages or will tourism actually change and destroy the culture by trying to make it "pretty" and turn it into a "staged"atmosphere? Something to ponder.


We arrived at the Miao Village (along with several hundred of our closest friends...ha ha) and were greeted in the traditional way.....we were offered a very strong drink....it tastes like....gasoline. The drink is served out of a horn and many people drink out of the same one. I think all the germs are killed instantly by the strength of the drink.
The ladies were wearing traditional dress and the men were playing bamboo instruments.

This is main street of the village. The house are actually very large compared with other areas of China and they are built on the side of the hills.

Houses built into the side of the hill

This is one of the Dong bridges that is now in the Miao Village. It is really beautiful but not authentic to the Miao culture.
All the homes are made of wood and fire is a very big threat to the whole village. The houses are very close together so it would only take a small fire to spread to the neighbors. This was a sign that was posted through out the village.

It took us a while to walk to our hotel from the main gate and might I say again....it was freezing! Originally we were supposed to stay in a guest house but they did not have heat. Our second option was a group of new rooms (some still under construction) at the end of the village. We were the first guests to use these rooms and they were very nice. The heat however was a problem....it took us several hours and a few calls to the office to get the heat working. The floors in the rooms were stone so you can imagine it took a long time to warm up and of course every time we left our room the heat would turn off. Aaahhhh!!!!


After we checked into our hotel we had lunch at this guest house. Notice the meat hanging from the balcony.

Lunch was rice and greens and tofu and beer! The beer was....cold! No refrigeration necessary today!

After lunch we hiked up the mountain to see the view of the whole village.

Tom on the trail

Stone patterns in the path
It was overcast this day so it is hard to tell but if you look close at this picture you can see that the hill across the valley is completely covered with houses.

Our gang at the top of the hill. Even after the hike up the hill it was still really really cold.

After our hike we had some free time so we walked around the village. Here are some sights from our walk....
Little boys jousting with sparklers


This is a chicken basket dinner...

A small outdoor restaurant

Ladies doing their embroidery work. Shelly and I visited a few little shops in the village that sold embroidery pieces and did our part to helped the economy.

In the evening we watched a short program in the village square.

We were dressed in all our layers and it was still cold...

This is the crowd waiting patiently for the program to start.

This is a really big area....lots of space for the performers....I mention this now because what happens later with the crowd was the real entertainment for us....

The girls came out and asked everyone to follow them. They lead the group around the square like a parade and then end up in a narrow area on the steps. In other words...the group is funneled through a small area. At this area they again offer the drink from the horns and then stamp your face with red flowers.



Part of this culture is playing practical jokes on people and stamping of the face has something to do with that practice. After this parade and stamping the crowd settle back into their spaces.

There were not many "foreigners" in this crowd so we were somewhat of a novelty.....especially Natalie. She had her picture taken so many time on this trip she would be very rich if she and charged a small fee for each one.


These are Chinese tourists taking pictures of our group. They are not shy about this.....and often walk right up and want their picture taken with you. It is a little weird at first, then it is funny, and after 8 days it is annoying!

So....I could not help myself....
I had to take a picture of them taking a picture of us.
Way too funny! Shelly said if they learned to use their zoom they would not have to get in our faces to take pictures.

Natalie was the star!
She was a really really really good sport about it.


The program started and the women were so beautiful. They sang traditional folk songs and danced. The men played bamboo instruments and it was nice.



As the show started people from the crowd started to move right onto the stage to take pictures. It was the funniest thing. And when one went up there....many many others followed until the dancers only an a small space to dance. There was one security guard but he was way totally numbered by people with cameras. And...with all the camera people huddled around the dancers the rest of the audience could not see a thing. So...they all moved forward to see over the peopel with cameras. I have never seen such bad behavior. At first I was shocked and mad that we could not see anything....then we all just started laughing because it was so bizarre. The poor security guard called for reinforcement but they never appeared.

After the dancers finished the crowd backed up a bit so the senior group could take the stage.

The senior group also sang and played instruments.

After the program we went up the hill to a restaurant for dinner. Our dinner was discribed as "having dinner with a local family". In reality it was a busy restaurant that was owned by a family. Ah...it is just semantics right?

While we were waiting for dinner......Natalie was asked to have her picture taken again with these little girls. The request was from their mothers.....I can not tell you how many times this happened over the next 6 days.
This was part of our dinner....and we had some of the smoked meat that was hanging from the ceiling. It was actually very good.

The owner of the restaurant stopped by to say "Hi".
He was very "happy" and invited the guys to tip the horn with him a few times.

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.