Traveling the World

You take the wine out and begin pouring it into the cups. It tastes great entering your mouth and going down your throat, but as the taste begins to fade, you look into the sky and fear the worst: rain. Even worse, you didn’t bring an umbrella and your hotel is on the other side of town! As the drizzle becomes a full-blown storm with lightning and thunder, you huddle with several other people underneath a vendor’s humongous umbrella.

You bide your time in boredom and angst, waiting for the rain to stop. A genius of a man approaches those of us who’ve become trapped like prey, and offers to sell us umbrellas for 10rmb. You are surprised by how fair he is being, as he obviously has the upper hand and could easily sell them for twice the price and you would pay it just to free yourself from the hell you’re enduring. You open the umbrella, grab your best gal’s arm, and run as fast as you can across the river and through the town, trying hard not to slip on the flooded cobblestone streets. After a rough time, you collapse on your bed, soaked to the bone. It’s something you realize you’ll never forget.

I’ve decided to continue writing photo posts, even if it means having to paste the Picasa URL to a friend and have them get my the picture’s URL so I can actually write about it. It’s a lot of work and quite annoying, but worth it to keep you guys happy and content with new things to read about! If you weren’t aware, I just wrote a new personal blog post which can be seen here.

This picture shows you just a single area of where boats are docked and waiting for tourists and even locals to board! As I mentioned in a previous post, there are only a few places within the town to cross the river, and so boats are the most common way of crossing. I paid 20rmb ($3.20) for a private ride that lasted around 45minutes, and was quite worth the trip.

The boat ride experience you have depends on where you pick up the boat! I saw some people at the very north end of the town going downstream, and I saw people in the south end going upstream! Each boat will have custom-tailored their experience based on the previous trips they’ve made, like the one I went on had a special stop on the other side of the river at a rice winery that was amazing.

Another option we had was to pay a bit extra and continue going down the river and further away from the town. They even had markers out on either side of the river to show you just how much further you’d be going if you paid that extra amount, something which helped me decide it’d be a huge waste of time, not to mention the poor bugger was already tired and we hadn’t gone back upstream yet!

Fenghuang

This is the first picture I took inside the town limits of Fenghuang. I felt it completely captured the ancient mountain feel coupled with the relaxed setting of a slow, lazy river strolling by. The townspeople might be hard at work all day long, but they appear to be having fun the entire time. If that’s not captivating and inspiring, then I don’t know what is. My opinion of the town is that each day is exactly the same from start to finish, but each day brings new faces to the town, making it appear to be constantly changing.

I left on a Sunday afternoon on a train from Wuhan to Huaihua, and then took a bus from Huaihua monday morning to Fenghuang. I think the four days I spent in Hunan province was great, and a much needed escape from the heat and fast pace of Wuhan. It was recommended to me by my girlfriend as a place for lovers, and indeed we met many couples there! At the time of this summary, the exchange rate was 6.83rmb for $1.

• The train from Wuhan to Huaihua = 211.5rmb ($30.90)
• The private car from Huaihua to Fenghuang = 30rmb ($4.37)
• Food = 126rmb ($18.40)
• Accommodation = 90rmb ($13.10)
• Private boat ride = 40rmb (20rmb each person) ($5.83)
• Miscellaneous = 438rmb ($63.90)
• The private car from Fenghuang to Huaihua = 30rmb ($4.37)
• The train from Huaihua to Wuhan = 211.5rmb ($30.9)

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My budget was 1600rmb, and I spent 1177rmb = $171

Remember that because I went with my girlfriend, some of my expenses involved paying for her food and her portion of the private boat ride.

Rafting with the Paddle

Splash

Going Down

The rest of the activity was hard but worth all the effort. At the end of the trip where everyone gets off the boats and starts walking to the minibus to return to the beginning, there is a place where you can swim. The sad part is, most Chinese people can’t swim. I figured this would be a good place to teach my girlfriend, except that the bottom was rocky and we were wearing sandals. To make matters worse, she was afraid of taking off her life preserver, which restricts your arms from really pushing yourself.

Since we were going against the current, it was quiet difficult, and I found myself almost rescuing her. After she got out, I took off everything but my swimming trunks and enjoyed swimming on my own. All the Chinese people were staring at me, partially amused at my doggy paddle, and partially amused at how I was the only foreigner, and that I was swimming without a life preserver. Silly Chinese!

*If you are interested in doing this trip, call the travel agent I dealt with at 13037416770. The price is between 130-150rmb. His office is located next to the Hong qiao Bridge.