China Bulletin 3

Hi Kids!

Friday today and we rode 80 km from Hezhou to Huang Yao. Hezhou is a big town in the throes of westernization, Huang Yao is a small village 1000 years old and many of the inhabitants are originals. We started today with breakfast on the street and then set off through a succession of villages each getting more rural as we progrssed. It seemed a little cooler today and we strolled along slowly, for which respite much thanks. I suppose it was after about 20kms that we came across a beautiful stretch of country where the number of shades of green was incredible - I bet the photo won't do it justice. Then we had the only hard climb of the day, unlike previous days where we averaged three. Once again lunch was a real entertainment. There seems to be some sort of jungle telegraph that tells kids when there are foreigners in town and we were surrounded with grinning kids saying "Hello" and giggling when you said "Hello" back. "Hello" seems so funny to them that I'm beginning to think it means "silly old buggers" in Chinese. We arrived in Huang Yao about 4.15 after a stretch of unmade road that made us wince a bit. We went straight to the ancient village which is preserved as a sort of heritage centre but with people still living in it. It was also the HQ of the local provincial communist party in the late 1940s. Kids were jumping into the river from a great height either from a big tree or from an old bridge. Also there was a painting course going on and I should think there were about 50 teenagers dotted about the place, each with an easel, a pallette and oil paints and a piece of sticky paper to catch the flies. All nice kids and some good paintings coming along nicely too. Then it was along to our hotel, the most primitive yet, to find we had a hole in the floor loo which also doubled as the shower tray, a gas geyser for hot water and no towels. Thank goodness I brought my new travelling blotter with me. Those of you initiated into the mysteries of my clothes-washing-while-travelling system will know that the risk of my losing a complete set of drying riding gear down the drain hole was a real worry to me. Tomorrow we're going somewhere else - God knows where.

Thanks to those of you who mailed today and thanks to Trevor for doing the Blog. I'll leave it to you if I may Trev, I'm having no luck with it from here. I've remembered something from the first day. Shortly after we started we went through an area where they sold stones - bloody great big ones. Some just big chunks of rock and others from river beds that had been eroded into amazing shapes. They'd look great in the entrance lobby of a hotel or commercial company. A sculptor would probably like to get his hands on some of them too.

See you next time.

Mick