Where the hell is Guiyang you ask? Well, being the considerate guy I am, I've updated my map:
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Better? OK.
So, what have I been doing the last week that has prevented me from devoting my entire attention from entertaining you? I'm glad you asked. It began with a five-day stay in Kunming. There's not a lot to do there; but there is french toast and pizza. I had plenty of both. After shitloads of noodles, rice and unidentifiable meat, it was so nice to have some western food. But one can only sit on his ass and gorge himself for so long, so I packed up and headed south for the Yuanyang rice terraces.
And on the way, our driver decided to take out a truck.
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And yes, I was sitting where I took the photo from. Fortunately we didn't hit something bigger, or I might have kissed the windshield. And thankfully the driver of the other vehicle got out alive. This delayed our trip by about 90 minutes while we waited for the police and insurance inspector to come. Now in the US, our driver would have been at fault--he was trying to pass the truck on the wrong side of the road. But the driver did obey the Chinese rule of honk-before-you-pass, and he's got the bigger vehicle, so I think in crazy backwards Commy-land, the driver of the truck (who probably lost his whole livelihood with this wreck) is likely the one to blame.
Anyway, the unscheduled rest stop allowed me to meet some of the other folks on the bus, including Don (Australia) and Kristi (New Zealand), with whom I shared a room and explored the area with.
Home base for exploring the rice terraces is Xinjie, also called Yuanyang. It's a nice town, perched far up in the moutains--about 1,500 meters up.
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We scheduled a van for the next day to take us out to see the sunrise and sunset, and some villages on the way; there are specific sites that are best for each occasion. As it was raining when we got arrived, we didn't know whether the weather would cooperate, but realized that regardless, we'd probably be fighting fog at the least.
Weather 1, us 0.
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The climate allows them only to plant once a year, so during the winter months, they just let the paddies flood...so during a nice sunrise or sunset, the colors reflect off the water. Despite the lack of an actual sunrise, we were able to see some great scenes of the 1,000-year-old terraces (yes, that's a thousand years these have been in use). I'm sorry to say that the few decent photos I was able to capture don't do the beauty of area justice.
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Sunset didn't work out too well either. This is all we got before everything was blanketed with fog.
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But equally as exciting as the terraces were the people, many belonging to the Hani minority, who inhabited the area. We spent some time at a couple local markets and trekked a bit to some nearby villages.
Now don't get all "child abuse" on me. This guy isn't smoking dope. It's common in Yunnan for folks to smoke their tobacco with bongs. Even their cigarettes.
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Water buffalo are the tractor of choice in the region.
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Harvesting rice.
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Paving a road. The women carried baskets of sand on their backs while the men mixed it with cement or sat on the ground smoking cigarettes. Chinese women are the hardest workers I've ever seen.
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And who can resist taking a photo of a cute little girl in traditional clothing?
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Even though mother nature had it in for us, we still had a great time. And I ruined my shoes.
Sooner or later... I knew I'd run into dog meat. Found it. We saw several shops in the area that specialized in dog meat. We even made a running joke that all the dogs we came across were named "dinner." Not so funny, though, was when Don and Kristi actually witnessed someone butchering a dog. Thankfully I missed that one, but apparently the knife wielder found it entirely unnecessary to do his task humanely and simply sliced the dog down the middle and let it bleed to death, barking and yelping all the while.
I will not be trying dog meat (and let's not get into whether I may have unknowingly).
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