Anshun

Our vacation to Anshun was a success despite a rocky start.  We left Sanmen on a Wednesday afternoon and took a train to Ningbo (40 min. train ride) where we had to lug our suitcases up many flights of steps since the Chinese seem to have an aversion to escalators or elevators.  Even when they are in place (and running), you usually have to go up at least a flight of steps to reach it.  They do have ramps next to the steps which makes the dragging a little easier, but it is still awkward (and going down stairs is harder than going up because of runaway luggage).  We then caught a cab to the Ningbo Airport and successfully checked our heavy bags and extra baby bicycle seat for no extra fee.  Once in Guiyang we caught a taxi to our hotel where we spent one night before heading to our final destination: Anshun.

A bit tired, but happy to be on vacation

There is a train to Anshun, but since we hadn’t yet used the Chinese bus system, we opted to take a public bus for the 1.5 hour drive.  After buying the tickets we realized they had a time stamp on them of 9PM when it was only noon.  This led to several tense moments as we tried to figure out what to do for nine hours when we thought it was supposed to be a frequent bus route.  Thankfully some nice Chinese people understood what we thought was our dilemma and kindly informed us that was the time that our ticket expired – not the leave time.  We were leaving on a bus less than 30 minutes later.  The bus actually proved to be a really nice mode of travel with luggage in tow.  It has much greater storage capacity than the trains, making it less stressful.

Once we arrived in Anshun, we tried to catch a taxi to our hotel but every taxi was full.  Some overly helpful bystanders then took it upon themselves to get us to our hotel.  We eventually ended up with our luggage and Mark in a three-wheel motorized cart and Vicki and LiLi sharing a taxi with some other random stranger.  We weren’t sure if we were actually going to make it to the hotel and Mark’s driver didn’t even know where he was taking Mark – he just tried to follow the taxi, not realizing we were dropping off the stranger before going to the hotel.  Further, the three vehicle couldn’t keep up.  Vicki’s taxi would be 

Ringing a bell at the
Confucian Temple

completely out of site and then we would catch them at the next traffic light.  It was very stressful.  We did make it though and successfully checked.  Although it was classified as a 4-Star hotel, it was pretty worn.  It was nice to have a lay down space for 8 full days though.

The next morning Mark built the tandem and we left trying to ride it to at least some local attractions.  However, the weather was not cooperative.  We were not out with the tandem for more than two minutes when it started to rain.  It was more of a mist to begin, so we still pedaled for 30 minutes just to start to get our bearings and to practice navigating with the GPS (which was off since Google Maps doesn’t actually align with GPS points.  So while (most) streets are right, we were really riding about 0.5 miles off course according to the GPS.  When we returned to the hotel we dried off, grabbed umbrellas, and headed back out to try to navigating on foot.  After getting a little lost, we finally made it to the Wang Ruofei house, which was the home of a rich “proletariat” during the start of the communist revolution in China.  We then continued on, trying to find the Wen Miao Confucian Temple.  We wandered through a traveling carved stone market and wandered along a riverside, trying to figure out where the temple might be.  We stopped under a gazebo to get out of the rain in order to look at our map and an old man there told us to follow him and he would take us there.  We were a bit skeptical as he took us down some back streets with old cobblestone roads, but he brought us to the temple!  We definitely wouldn’t have found it on our own.  After walking through the temple grounds we dec

ided to head back to the hotel, looking for a place to eat dinner on the way home.  Not far from the hotel, we stopped at a restaurant that looked like a hotpot.  While it was a hotpot, the broth base was ambiguous.  We just pointed to one on the wall, and when it came it was too spicy for us to consume.  They ended up scooping out the red peppers, adding more water, and bringing us rice in order to make it edible for us (though certainly not palatable!).   They also 

Our unknown meal

brought LiLi an egg dish and a bunch of bananas since there was no way she would be able to eat the other dish.  We’re still unsure as to the base of the broth.  We thought the bones and claws looked rodent-like, though some people have told us it may have been a frog.  We will likely never know!  It was definitely a strange exercise in saving face, with us trying to decide how much food we had to eat to not embarrass the restaurant and the restaurant trying to help make their food edible for us.  This meal was the low point of the trip for Vicki, who went to bed hungry that night!

On Saturday it was still raining so we still couldn’t ride the tandem to any of the more interesting tourist destinations.  We decided we couldn’t spend two days back to back wandering around Anshun in the rain though, so we decided to try to get to one of the destinations too far away for us to pedal to.  We chose Hongfeng Lake, which was about 65K away and was supposed to be a beautiful reservoir with many maple trees and surrounding ethnic minority villages.  We asked the staff at the front desk of our hotel to get us a taxi there (expected price of $60 round trip), and one hour (and $100) later we had a private driver and tour guide (who didn’t speak English).  This was Mark’s low point of the trip.  If he had been in a door-side seat, he would have jumped out at an intersection when still in Anshun.  However, he couldn’t convince Vicki to do so.  It was quite stressful for the tour guide to keep talking and talking to us despite us telling her again and again “women zhi wei yi dian dian Zhongwen” (We only know a little Chinese) and “women bu zhi dao” (we do not understand).  Mark finally got the idea to pull out his Chinese language flashcards and LiLi’s Chinese books and say “You be teacher; us students; sit here”.  So the tour guide sat between us and we practiced our pronunciation.   From that point on she (largely) stopped trying to explain the history of the area to us and just became a companion, which was nice.  She also became fairly competent at using our handheld electronic translator, which made the stress of communicating drastically decrease.

Happy to eat a good lunch
with our tour guide and driver

As we made it to the town with Hongfeng Lake, the tour guide asked if we would like to eat lunch before going to the lake.  We agreed that was a good idea.  The first place the driver stopped looked like a hotpot from the night before, and when we told them “bu la” (no spicy), they decided it best to take us elsewhere.  The driver then talked to people on the street and made a few u-turns as he drove and we thought for sure we might never get lunch or get to Hongfeng Lake, but alas we made it to a backwoods restaurant.  Our tour guide ordered for us and we ended up with a delicious meal of eggplant (not slimy!), rice, an egg dish, fish, and some type of root.  We finally made it to Hongfeng Lake in the early afternoon.  We bought our entrance ticket, and soon found out that Hongfeng Lake looked like a foreclosed tourist spot.  And, none of the destinations “included” in the entrance fee are accessible unless you charter a 

Hongfeng Lake...

boat.  Since it was a rainy day, and the place was disappointing looking already, our tour guide negotiated the cost of the boat down from Y500 to only Y300 – about $45.  This was turning out to be an expensive trip to an awful destination!  None of the islands turned out to be very interesting, and our tour guide, who had come along to learn about the place since she had never taken a group there before, was confused as to why it was a destination at all.  At least we got a good lunch!

With rain predicted for Sunday as well, we decided it was safer to walk Anshun in the rain then risk going to another disappointing tourist trap.  We also wanted 

Anshun Bai Tai (White Pagoda)

to look for a baby carrier like we saw all of the locals wearing.  We ended up covering quite a few miles, walked through a nice local park around a lake, and visited Anshun’s white pagoda that was built in 1326.  While certainly not how we hoped the vacation would be, this day didn’t really feature anything negative, which made is a positive day, right?  The best part actually was that while walking back to our hotel, we found a great bakery that made delicious cookies and muffins.  We stocked up our room so we could hopefully never be hungry again on this trip!

On Monday the weather finally cleared.  55 degrees and cloudy!  We pedaled the tandem 35K to Tian Long Tun Bao, which was an old stone village largely unchanged since the Ming Dynasty (14^th century).  The homes are built of stone and the people around here are the Buyi minority, made up largely of farmers. They wear distinctive clothes – which were not just for the edification of tourists (unlike the Miao at Hongfeng Lake), because we saw lots of locals working out in the fields in these outfits miles from the actual tourist attraction.  Not quite sure 

The stone houses

what to expect of this destination, we were pleasantly surprised to find an awesome Buddhist temple on a mountain with some beautiful hiking paths and ancient walls.  The village itself, while old, was much more touristy, with the main road through it being a thoroughfare for Chinese crafts (which to their credit did seem to largely be locally made) and antiques.  Overall, it was a pretty neat destination that is undersold in the information we could find online before the trip. 

Buying a baby carrier

When we got back to our hotel in Anshun that evening, we decided to ask the hotel staff if they could tell us where to find a baby carrier like we see all the locals using.  The one staff member offered to take us to get one the next morning.  While 10AM the next morning was a bit late for us since we had other places we wanted to go, we really wanted a baby carrier and to honor the woman’s generosity.  She was actually ready to go by 9:30AM the next morning.  We then took a taxi to a little side street market where there were at least four sellers of these carriers.  In the States, these retail for over $100 each.  We ended up buying three different varieties of the carrier for less than $35 combined.  We also got LiLi a “watermelon suit” – a fuzzy hooded blanket they wrap their kids in before putting them in the baby carrier.  We were back to the hotel by 10:10AM – well worth a delay in our day’s plans since we got such awesome baby carriers!  The nice woman who took us there wouldn’t even let us pay for the taxi (only $1) or give her a tip.  We tried to explain to her how much they were worth to us and that we’d like to give her a tip for helping us find them, but she refused.  Such generosity!

Happy to finally be on the bike!

Since the weather was still (relatively) clear, we wanted to go explore some more local sites on the tandem.  So we hurriedly changed and were out pedaling by 10:30AM.  We decided that since we had previously budgeted two days for Huanggushu National Park, we would head there since if we didn’t get to see much because of our morning delay, we would at least have a game plan for the next time we went.  The park was 45K away, or about 2 hours.  While it was supposed to be a “Provincial Road” we would take all the way there, which in past experience here in China are relatively well maintained, this particular road would sometimes devolve to a very rutted dirt road, where we could pedal faster than the vehicles could travel.  The little villages along the way were fun though.  And there were so many more instances of cows in the road than we encounter back home in Sanmen. 

LiLi knows how to attract a crowd

However, Chinese driving habits drove us a bit crazy here.  For instance, horns (which are the loudest horns we’ve ever heard in our lives) are used much too frequently.  And they just keep honking the whole time they are passing you.  Also, if an oncoming vehicle is bigger than you and they think your lane is the nicer route, they will just take it.  Large vehicles prefer to make left hand turns from the right lane and vice versa.  Less of a turning radius then?  We’re not sure on the logic, but it can be scary.  Lights in the dark are also optional, even for large vehicles like public buses.  And looking before pulling out into the road is completely optional.  Apparently oncoming traffic is supposed to respond to you?  Since our speeds are so low, these driving habits are much less dangerous for us than they probably sound here; they are largely just incredibly annoying.

Enjoying some field corn

Well, anyway, we made it to Huanggushu around lunch time and decided to find a nice place to eat.  The restaurant we ended up at just had us point at food items (as is often protocol here) so we had no idea what we were actually getting.  The Chinese are usually good at telling us when we have ordered enough food (when pointing you have no idea preparation method or portion size).  This restaurant didn’t tell us though, so we had way too much food when it finally came.  The food was actually incredibly good, but we sure got a “Yankee Discount” when the bill came.  We can often eat out for $2-$5 for our family, and at a really nice place it might be about $20.  This bill was $45.  This rarely happens to us though, so we just chalked it up to a learning experience.  We could have easily asked the price before completing our order – there were warning signs that this place might be expensive.

Since lunch took so long (it was pretty slow service) and we knew the ride home would take a lot longer (we did a lot of descending (1000ft)  to reach our destination), we only had about 1.5 hours to do anything.  So instead of buying 

Guanyin Temple
Cave Buddha

the park entrance ticket, we decided to try to find the stone village that was supposed to be nearby.  We never did find it (we think we may have missed it by a couple kilometers),  but we did enjoy a nice day of riding.  Since we were pushing nightfall (we had a headlight and taillight on the bike), we decided to take an “expressway” (not closed to bikes) that largely paralleled the bumpy provincial road.  Unfortunately though, the traffic on it was a lot faster and the scenery was less interesting.  It was easier for LiLi to sleep though without all the bumps of the provincial road.

On Wed. we went to Dragon Palace (Lónggōng) Cave.  It was about a 40K ride from the hotel (also 1000ft descending).  This was a really neat place with a water filled limestone cave 

Entrance to the limestone
cave via boat

that you take a boat through to see all of the stalactites.  Right nearby there is also a Buddhist temple built inside a cave.  We were pretty tight on time if we wanted to try to beat dark, so we didn’t know if we would actually 

Limestone stalactites

make it to the cave temple, but we did and it was worth it (though we did get back a little after dark).  It was a pretty unique one.  Instead of riding the same way back to the hotel, we decided to take a road that had a sign pointing “to Anshun”.  It ended up being a beautiful road through lots of small farming villages.  The second best road of the trip - fun times!

Unique waterfall in the Tianxing Scenic Area

On Thursday, our last full day in Anshun, we headed back to Huangguoshu National Park.  This park is famous for the Huangguoshu waterfall – the largest in China.  Since we had been there two days prior, we knew right where to go to buy our tickets and headed straight for the first stop: a small waterfall in an area with lots of peacocks.  LiLi was so impressed with the hundreds of peacocks walking around us.  She would have loved to stay there all day.  However, based on all the tourist spots listed on our ticket, we figured we only had about 45 min. at each location.  On to the next stop! 

Crazy carved limestone valley

Cool road climb to Huangguoshu

45 minutes later (yes, when we were supposed to be done with the second attraction), we finally arrived at the second stop (after another big descent too (1000 ft) – so the way out was going to be even slower!).  I guess our plans were going to change a little!  This spot was the Tianxing Scenic Area and was so beautiful.  They built a bunch of stepping stones and paths through a river surrounded by limestone which had been carved by the river.  The start of this was pretty crowded, but (thankfully?) most Chinese tourists only come for the picture, not the experience.  So by the first bailout, almost all of the people were gone.  This scenic area may have been our favorite part of the trip.  When you finally exited on the far side, you then have to take a bus back.  But most people on the bus just want to go to the next tourist spot, so it was only at the last minute that we realized the bus was driving past where our tandem was parked!  We managed to successfully jump off the bus though, and only had to walk a little ways back.  We then had a beautiful hill climb out of the valley to get to the main attraction: the Huangguoshu waterfall.

Since this was the main attraction, it was also the most crowded.  It was also the only place where we saw any other Westerners during our whole vacation.  There were about five of them here.  This waterfall ended up being a bit disappointing.  It is taller than Niagara Falls, but the actual water flow is so much less, making it that much less grand.  It did have a natural cave carved out behind it though, so you can walk behind the “water curtain” of the waterfall.  The Tianxing Scenic Area was much more grand.  On the way out we 

Huangguoshu Waterfall

bought some more boiled sweet potatoes (our staple food of the day, along with Oreos, since we knew we didn’t actually have time to stop and eat), ate some Gu, and started the ride home – only about 40 minutes behind schedule.  We actually felt a lot stronger that evening that we had two nights prior when doing the same ride, so we made it back to the hotel only about 20 min. after dark.

On Friday, our journey home began.  We checked out of our hotel and took a taxi to the bus station, where the staff was very helpful (they wouldn’t even let Vicki carry a suitcase) in making sure we got on the correct bus, which was mostly full.  The one employee even went on ahead of us to ask some people to move, so that we could have seats next to each other.  Once in Guiyang, we caught a taxi straight to the airport and again checked in successfully without any extra weight charge or a fee for LiLi’s bicycle seat.  Since by the time we would arrive in Ningbo, all the trains to Sanmen would be done for the day, we called “Taxi Jackie” (a local entrepreneur who knows a little English and now has a very successful taxi business with very nice cars and (mostly) safe drivers.  He can sometimes be unreliable though, since he always says “yes” even if he didn’t understand your request) to have one of his drivers meet us at the airport and drive us the two hours home.  It was actually quite nice to not have to lug our stuff through a train station, and instead have a guy with a sign with our name on it waiting to pick us up.  He even had oranges for us in the car.

LiLi was so excited to get home and see all of her toys.  Unfortunately, we were greeted with the smell of rotting food.  The power had gone out very soon after we left on vacation, and the property management folk (who knew we were gone since they are the ones who register us with the local police) missed checking our apartment to reset the breaker.  Our freezer was filled with nastiness (shrimp and crab).  Cleaning that was not exactly what we wanted to do once finally home…

Behind the Huangguoshu Waterfall

Overall, it was a good vacation.  We pedaled for 18 hours in the last four full days.  LiLi is an amazing toddler – always pushing us to ride more than we even want to!  It was interesting to see another province and to realize how wealthy Zhejiang Province is in comparison.  It was also neat to see so many of China’s ethnic minority groups since the Han Chinese make up 92% of China and 99.2% of Zhejiang Province.  We also learned to always pay the hotel deposit in cash, because then the hotel can’t forget to take a hold off your bank account!  Two weeks on, the hotel hadn’t cleared the hold, so we had nearly $1000 in our Chinese bank account that we couldn’t touch.  When we called the hotel, they had “lost” the deposit receipt and said they couldn’t clear it.  And our bank said we would have to wait for it to clear automatically (after one month).  Thankfully, the hotel finally found the paperwork and cleared it for us.  China is full of little learning experiences…

We have a lot more to update regarding our recent weekend trips to Linhai and Hangzhou, so hopefully it won’t be so long between updates.  We considered shortening this once since it is so late, but decided we wanted the written memory of the trip.