I'll let the pictures tell the story of our explorations and focus this narrative (for anyone who reads it, we know most of you are just here for the pictures anyways :) on a few themes that seem to have emerged in our early days in China: touts, technology, tour groups and time.
Touts (or simply, people trying to sell you things you don't want or need) are a reality of travelling and have been a pervasive theme of much of our year. But the touts of China are of a unique ilk and we've found as much humor as annoyance in their presence. Firstly, they seem to be mostly women. After 6 weeks in Indonesia where women are often subjegated to more subservient roles due to religious beliefs, it's refreshing to see such enterprising ladies of all ages, many as old as 70 or 80 years it seems. Secondly, their tactics are diverse and at times quite creative. The two men who coaxed us into having a tea tasting with them at a local shop so they could "practice their English" (we knew they were trying to eventually sell us seats on their boat trip but enjoyed learning about the tea ritual all the same). The woman who followed us on our bikes at a respectable distance through the rice paddies of Yungshou and then just "happened to be there" when we needed directions (we never would have found the fabled Dragon Bridge we were searching for with out her and so also didn't mind her presence too much). And our favorite strategy of the street vendors -- when you tell them you're "just looking" in an attempt to get them to back off, the respond in turn screaming "JUST LOOKING!" or sometimes "LOOKING!" or occasionally "JUST!". Check back in a few weeks and we may have had our fill of these touts but so far they're mostly just a funny distraction along the way.
Technology is quite simply everywhere. Train and bus tickets are printed instantaneously from any random travel agent you visit. We have yet to stay in a hotel that didn't include WiFi in our room.... Yes, this includes our lodging in the small mountain town of Ping'an where there are no roads and traditional farming techniques are still used in the fields. The owner of our little guesthouse there appeared to be day trading in his free time. Our wonderful host in Yangshou, Mr. Wei was seeking advice from Nader on how he can better optimize his search capabilities on his guesthouse's website. Everyday technologies -- from how subway cards scan to the design of wall outlets are just a little smarter and better than those back home. Tic-toc goes the clock on the U.S. empire....
Chinese tour groups are also pervasive. The guide, with her little yellow or red flag and high-tech microphone system leads a group of 10-20 Chinese tourists who seem to be checking off the sites off there list of "must dos" with a quick photo and lots of chatter. This was a piece of China that I was most expecting and prepared to find terribly annoying. But, surprisingly, it's actually incredibly refreshing to see an country filled with it's own tourists. So much of our year has been spent in developing countries where the places we visit are too expensive for locals and have been turned into foreign playgrounds catering to young backpackers from richer nations. I'm reminded most starkly of the salt flats in Bolivia -- breathtakingly beautiful but not a single Bolivian amidst the droves of tourists. Here in China, the tour groups are a sign of the large and growing middle class. Sure, the crowds can be a bit tiresome at times (see if you can spot Nader hiding amdist the group below), but it's energizing to be in the presence of such growth and opportunity. Also, since they all seem to be following a prescribed route and the script of their tour guide, we've found that if you hike or bike about 15 minutes off the beaten path, you can still find the solitude of a beautiful countryside.
And finally, time. It's been our biggest asset this year. I'll never forget that freedom and excitement that we both felt on our last day of work and then when the movers came to take all our possessions into storage. Over the months that followed, we embraced this freedom of space and time as our new reality as the novelty wore off a bit. Though deeply enjoying and immersing ourselves in each new experience, we perhaps lost a bit of the appreciation for the gift of time. Without discussing it, we both have found ourselves in the last week cycling back to a feeling of gratefulness for the time and space that we have. With only 10 weeks left in our travels, each day starts to feel precious yet again.... Not only the sites that we will see but also those morning where we can lie in bed reading books or those afternoons spent on buses and trains watching the countryside roll by. We feel very lucky....
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment