Magda wrapped up her last final exam on the morning of May 11, so we boarded the MTR towards Shenzhen around lunchtime. For those who don't know, you can enter Mainland China from Hong Kong just by taking the MTR about 5 stops from CUHK. Getting through security was easy as usual and, soon enough, we reached the other side of the border. Our next stop was to buy train tickets to our first destination: Dongguan. Luckily, the long-distance railway station is connected to the Shenzhen city MTR so we just had to walk a little way before reaching the ticket counter. There was really only one place in that city we really wanted to see but, since it was on the way to our main destination, we made a little afternoon detour.
In just under half an hour, we reached Dongguan, and boarded the bus towards Dongguan Keyuan--a very large Chinese-style garden. It was around 3:30pm, and I knew the garden closed at 5:30pm so I asked the lady who collects the bus tickets how long it would take. She said just about half an hour, so we figured we could still have 1.5 hours to look around. All was well.
Actually, all was well for the first half hour, then that turned into 45 minutes and so on. The traffic kept getting worse and worse until we had been on the bus for 1.5 hours. Finally, we got off at Keyuan around 5:05pm. We ran to the ticket counter so that we could take just a quick look around, but they had a sign saying "No ticket sales after 5:00pm." So, long story short, we took a detour to Dongguan and ended up missing the only sight we wanted to see there. Thankfully, neither of us believes in omens or this would have been a terrible indicator for the rest of our trip.
As things were, we still took some pictures from the gate and from outside:
By then it had started raining and neither one of us really wanted to take the bus 1.5 hours back to the railway station. I asked some local high school students if there was a railway station or a long-distance bus station anywhere closer by, and they directed us to the Dongguan Southern Bus Station. The rain was awful by the time we arrives, which makes sense because Typhoon Aere was over Guangdong Province at the time. We ran into the bus station and quickly bought our tickets for Guangzhou (formerly known as "Canton"), where we intended to spend the bulk of our trip.
When we arrived, the rain had finally stopped and we made it to our hostel (Guangzhou Riverside Youth Hostel) without a problem, although it was a much farther walk from the MTR station than we expected. The beautiful view of the Pearl River certainly made up for it, though:
Our hostel was right in the middle of Guangzhou's historic colonial district. Technically, as a 2,000 year-old city with civilization starting as far back as 6,000 years ago, everywhere in Guangzhou is a historic district. However, we found ourselves right in the middle of the most scenic one.
The next day, we woke up bright and early to get a head start on our long list of sights to see. In fact, we woke up so early that not too many shops were open for breakfast! Eventually, we found some dumplings for RMB 3 per basket (~ US$0.45). 10 dumplings were just too many for me, especially that early in the morning, so I had about half and Magda finished the rest for me.
Next, we headed out to Baiyunshan (White Cloud Mountain), which is one of the most famous scenic spots in Guangzhou. It's really big, though, so we took the cable car up to the top.
By the time we got to the top of the mountain, it was around 9:30am, and the weather was already stifling hot. The shade from the trees didn't help much, either, since there was so much humidity.
There were a lot of different attractions available at the mountain peak, but we had mainly come for the beautiful view. Even so, we were already there so we decided to tour the natural birdcage:
Can you spot the duck?
After seeing all the birds, we climbed as high up as we could get for the best possible view. It's very easy to see how this place earned its name:
Next, we followed the roads down until we came to Nine Dragons Spring Temple:
Still, we were about 3km away from the bottom of the mountain. We walked and walked, and decided to take a detour to the famous Nengren Temple.
In Hong Kong, there are a few temples more than 600 years old or so, but they are very small and often falling apart. The larger, more luxurious temples are modern creations, which makes sense given that Hong Kong is a very young city (approximately 150 years old). Guangzhou, however, was an economic center for the Chinese for thousands of years, and so it houses many ancient and elaborate temples. Like many others across Guangdong Province, Nengren Temple was particularly exquisite.
Cat on the temple roof:
Detailed dragon statues slithering up the temple roof tiles:
Neither one of us could figure out why this lantern was hanging from the temple. The character means "tea."
It's the year of the rabbit according to the Chinese zodiac, so many temples keep and take care of rabbits this year.
There may not be a year of the cat, but Taoist and Buddhist temples almost always have resident cats. I love his mismatched blue and green eyes!
His friends were cute too.
Next, we came back to the city center and had lunch at a Muslim Chinese restaurant. Although Islam is most prevalent in the northwestern region of China, the Muslim population in Guangzhou is higher than most other cities, and has grown rapidly in the last decade. Islam was originally introduced to China around the time of the Prophet Muhammad, the founder of the religion. It traveled along the Silk Road, by both sea and land. While the continental route often terminated in Xi'an, the maritime route actually ended up in Guangzhou. So, even though it may seem strange on the surface, it's really no wonder that Guangzhou has such a large Muslim population! Well, this was our delicious, but way too enormous lunch:
Just across the street was our next destination: The Chen Clan Academy, also known as the Chen Family Temple. Built in 1894, this building served a very unique function: an academic temple. The Chen clan was a prestigious family whose sons often took and excelled in the Qing Dynasty imperial examinations. They built this temple so that the junior members could study, relax, and meditate in a peaceful environment. Of course, they had no way of knowing that the imperial examination system would end in 1905. Now, the temple houses the Guangdong Folk Art Museum:
The weather may have been blazing hot with almost 100% humidity, but that didn't stop us from continuing on to our next stop: The Bright Filial Piety Temple. This temple is not only one of the oldest Buddhist temples in Guangdong Province, but also one of the oldest in China. It dates back to the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC--AD 24), when it served as the mansion for Zhao Jiande of the Nanyue Kingdom (more on that later). The temple around the mansion was built around year 350, but most of the temple grounds seen today were completed in the Qing Dynasty (1644--1911).
Just down the road was another famous religious building, the Huaisheng Mosque. Unfortunately, such a great cultural relic was closed permanently to non-Muslims. We took some pictures of what little we could see from the outside:
The famous minaret, over 1,000 years old:
I mentioned Zhao Jiande of the Nanyue Kingdom before, and then said that I would talk more about it later. Well, it's later now. Our next destination was this place: The Nanyue King's Tomb Museum. The Nanyue Kingdom is a very unique and fascinating aspect of Chinese history, although it's too complex for me to describe fully here. Instead, check out this link from my usual source of reference. Even if you don't normally click the links I provide, I highly recommend checking this one out. It's an interesting read.
If you didn't click the link, then I'll offer a much too brief summary: a military commander broke off from the Han Dynasty and declared himself emperor of a new kingdom called Nanyue, which included lots of places in Southern China and Northern Vietnam. The rebel kingdom lasted for a few generations before deteriorating, but the second king of Nanyue had a really elaborate tomb built in Guangzhou, which was discovered in 1983. Now the public can take a look around.
The king, Zhao Mo, had himself buried in luxury, including the sacrifice of 4 concubines, 1 musician, 2 guards, and 8 servants. Yikes!
The outer lacquer sarcophagus:
Of course, the most fascinating display was the inner jade sarcophagus. This detailed work was made from tiny individual pieces of highly-polished jade attached using red silk, and tailored to the king's body.
Zhao Mo's burial jewelry, made of bronze and jade--two of the most valuable materials in ancient China:
A restored lacquer screen found inside the king's burial chamber:
We stayed until closing time and then spent a little time in Yuexiu Park, where we had another rendezvous with Typhoon Aere. Needless to say, we didn't stay long and I didn't take any photos there.
The next morning, we woke up early again, and took a bus from Guangzhou to another city called Foshan, which is most famously known as the hometown of Bruce Lee's kung-fu master. We went to check out a place called Xiqiaoshan, or "Mount Xiqiao." Since the area is so incredibly huge and there were no buses, we hired a taxi to take us around all morning. Like everyone else (literally!), our taxi driver didn't speak more than 2-3 words of English, but he told me all about each place and I translated for Magda so we still got the full benefit. We certainly had a beautiful view of the city:
And of the sheer, rocky cliffs:
We passed by this area, which used to be a mine.
Eventually, the miners found an underground lake when they came across this cave:
You can take a cruise on the lake inside the cave, but we decided it was too expensive and just enjoyed looking at it from dry land.
Our driver took us to all the different major attractions, including the most famous one: the giant statue of the goddess Guanyin, particularly Guanyin of the South Sea.
Our taxi driver got a little photo-happy, but I don't mind:
Like any respectable temple, this one had a wishing tree:
We encountered a small Tin Hau Temple (one of the most prominent kinds in Hong Kong and Guangdong Province) on our way to the bamboo garden.
And then, of course, carried on to see the different kinds of bamboo:
Overall, we found the bamboo garden a little underwhelming. Supposedly, it's much more beautiful in early spring so we missed out on all the flowers. Next, we went to another scenic area, where we could view the city of Foshan below:
Given my track record involving steep, narrow steps, I made sure to be extra cautious--even if it did mean lagging behind Magda by a long shot. She was very patient with me.
The 500 meter waterfall:
We followed the path along the cliff-face and around the mountains. After descending so many steps, it led us to this cave:
Unexpectedly, the cave was close to the exit, which was fortunate because Typhoon Aere decided to drop in and surprise us again. Given the change of events (and considering that we had seen all the most famous areas), we asked our taxi driver to recommend a restaurant where we could enjoy cheap, authentic, and delicious food. He drove us to this delightful Guangdong-style restaurant, where the specialty was claypot rice. We ended up with massive pots of crunchy rice, fish, and octopus, as well as chili-sauce choi sum and sweet soup. A very good recommendation! Of course, the atmosphere was a large part of it:
After lunch, we took the bus to a slightly smaller town called Shunde. Technically, it's a district of Foshan, but it's very far away and quite large on its own. On maps it looks like an entirely different city. The bus ride took about 1 hour. We switched buses in Shunde to reach our next stop: Qinghuiyuan. We had about 1.5 hours to look around, and I wish we had more. This garden is one of the most spectacular examples of Guangdong-style architecture and gardening in China. And just think...this used to be someone's house!
It took us a while to get back to Guangzhou from Shunde, but we had a fun day nonetheless. We got back late and felt pretty hungry so we went to a traditional Chinese family-style restaurant close to our hostel. We ordered mantou and jiachangdoufu (home-style tofu).
The next morning, we woke up especially early and took the ferry to Shamian Island, which was next on our list of sights to see.
In the 1800s, both France and England occupied Guangzhou off and on and, while there, they built all kinds of beautiful colonial buildings that make you think you're in Charleston, SC or Savannah, GA. The island was divide into 2 concessions (one for each country) and was used as a strategic base for the Europeans during the Opium Wars of the 1800s.
Well, except for the Chinese writing on the door plaques. Also, if you can read this sign, the presence of Chinese medicine stores might be another dead giveaway. Rest assured, though, that the weather remains the same.
Our Lady of Lourdes Chapel:
Next, we took the MTR down one station to go see the Xiguan Mansions. It was a long walk from the MTR station, but we made it. Turns out, though, that there was some special event going on and the interior of the mansion was open only for very limited viewing. Instead, we walked around the historic Liwan District.
We left around 11:00am and checked out of our hostel, ready to begin the final leg of our journey: Kaiping. For me, this would also be the most challenging part of our trip because, while Kaiping itself was a decent-sized town, our real destination included the tiny rural villages just outside of town. I really had used Chinese exclusively (speaking English with only Magda) up to that point, but it was a little intimidating to think that no one would understand English, and that using it to communicate simply was not an option.
It took 2 hours by bus from Guangzhou to Kaiping, and I was a little relieved to see that the town was bigger than I thought. We found our hotel with little difficulty and checked in. After a quick wash-up each, we got directions (written out in Chinese characters by the hotel staff) for how to get to our first destination: Chikan Town. This place was really far off the beaten track, and took us another 45 minutes by bus from Kaiping. I spoke with some locals on the bus about where we should get off, and luckily there was a family from that town. The mother said that she would show us since it's really hard to find. After all, most of the bus stops were random places on a dirt road that ran between rice paddies and cow fields. The stop for Chikan was another one just like them.
Once we walked some way into the town, though, the scenery changed dramatically.
Chikan Town was absolutely wonderful although, naturally, there was no English to be found other than the occasional "hallo!" from younger locals. Young or old, though, everyone stared at us. This, I'm already used to, especially since it happens all over China. People who live in big cities are more used to foreigners, but that doesn't mean you don't still get stares in those areas. Places like Shanghai and Beijing attract a lot of Chinese tourists from rural areas, so they stare at you and want to take pictures with you. Either way, I don't mind it. I realize that, yes, I look funny in China. I seem even more unusual when I open my mouth and Chinese comes out. People always look like they dread it when they see me approach to ask a question but, as soon as I ask in Chinese, they lighten up immediately and get very chatty. Magda's not so used to the stares so I think she felt a little uncomfortable at first. She quickly adjusted, though!
The real challenge would be getting to the places we wanted to see. I have had previous experience with the joys of public transportation in Mainland China, but I had never been to such a rural place in a foreign country. Intuition told me that the buses would be few and far between, and that none of them would take us anywhere within walking distance of the places we wanted to go. Turns out I hit the proverbial nail on the head. Thankfully, I had researched transportation modes in Kaiping very thoroughly before arriving. It seemed that the only efficient way to get around was by taxi. Unfortunately, hiring out a car to drive you from village to village for 6-7 hours is way too expensive--not to mention that the taxis in Kaiping are limited to in-city use. Instead, we would have to rely on motorcycle taxis. Before leaving Hong Kong, I discovered how to recognize licensed motorcycle taxi-drivers by their uniforms, which mostly has to do with the types of helmets they wear. I verified this information with some policemen close to our Kaiping hotel before even thinking about hiring one.
As you've probably figured out, we did hire one--well, two actually. For RMB 80 each (~ US$12.30), those two uncles took us everywhere we wanted to go for about 6 hours. The main attraction in the Kaiping area is, without a doubt, diaolou. In short, the various clans in the area have fought both against invaders and amongst each other for hundreds of years. The clans are so well-established that people can guess which village you're from based on your surname alone (i.e. people from Taishan village are almost exclusively surnamed "Chan"). They built these elaborate watchtowers, which got taller over time as they added levels. The first diaolous sprung up around 600 years ago, and have much simpler designs. As people from the Kaiping area migrated in massive numbers to Europe and the USA in the 1800s and early 1900s, they picked up several components of Western architectural style. In fact, most of the Chinese railroad workers in the USA during the 1800s were from the Kaiping area. So many moved abroad that now there are more Kaipingese people living in foreign countries than there are in all of China. Well, several of them did move back, and they brought the Western architecture with them. The newer diaolous were all built with both Chinese and Western architectural elements, and the people made Western-inspired additions to older towers.
From Chikan Town, we wanted to go to Sanmenli Village to see Yinglonglou, which is the oldest surviving diaolou in the Kaiping area, with its lower two levels built in the mid-1400s. The top, 3rd level was built in the 1920s. Those two shushu ("uncle" in Chinese, which is the correct way for college girls like us to call men about the same age as our fathers) loved taking pictures for us, and made sure that we saw everything we wanted and then some. This is us outside of Yinglonglou:
It's the only diaolou in the area that you can actually enter. The villagers keep a small shrine there, and also store the local festival decorations.
We climbed up to the top level for the best view:
View from the window:
This, also, was one of the windows. The diaolou did start as watchtowers, but soon became like defensive castles. During the 1911 revolution, and also during the Taiping Rebellion, the diaolous housed snipers equipped with machine guns as well as search-lights and even cannons.
We continued our journey towards Zilicun village, the location of another famous diaolou cluster. The shushu driving Magda didn't talk much, probably because I explained (in Chinese, of course) that she doesn't speak or understand Chinese. However, the one driving me was very talkative, and seemed to know just about everything there was to know about each individual diaolou. We had some nice, long conversations during the 20-30 minute intervals between diaolous, and I learned a lot about the history and culture of the area. I translated everything for Magda later on.
On the road in the middle of nowhere:
Check out my "lovely" windblown hair. When I showed these two pictures to Menglu, she said I shouldn't post them because my hair looks too funny! Oh well, if I can't laugh at myself, then I just don't have a sense of humor:
This one is the Fang Clan Diaolou. Unusually, it's in the middle of the Fang Clan graveyard, and was equipped with searchlights to catch and scare away grave-robbers:
Magda making a funny face on the motorcycle:
Those shushu just loved taking pictures for us, and would often take us on little detours, saying (what translates to) "Oh, this one isn't on your map, but it's really beautiful. Let's stop here and take a picture!"
Eventually, we asked them to take us to the bus stop so we could ride the bus back to the urban area of Kaiping, which is where our hotel was. At the hotel, we began another quest, which had been on Magda's mind for a long time. That is, she had an overwhelming desire to eat dog. Yes, you read that right...dog. It may be a stereotype, but in this case, it's true. Not only that, but Kaiping is one of the best places to eat it, supposedly. I asked the girls working behind the counter at the hotel, and they recommended a few places. However, once the security guard overheard us talking, he enthusiastically jumped into the conversation. Apparently, that guy considered himself somewhat of a dog-meat connoisseur, and he knew exactly which restaurant we should choose.
He was quite surprised to find that two young Western women wanted to eat dog meat. It was a good kind of surprised, though, and he even helped us get a huge discount on taxi fare by calling a taxi-driver friend of his. It seems small towns are the same just about anywhere. 10 minutes later, we found ourselves at this hole-in-the-wall outdoors restaurant where dog was the specialty. The 3rd character from the left says "dog" and the 4th one from the left says "meat."
And here's the picture. Believe me, it looked much tastier in real life. Somehow the lighting makes it look not so good here. The general consensus between us was that it tasted somewhat like venison and somewhat like lamb, quite soft and chewy, but with too many bones and gristle. I actually wouldn't mind eating it again, though it wouldn't be my first choice.
The next day was our last day in Kaiping, and indeed our last day in Guangdong. We spent the morning heading out to our final destination: Jinjiangli village. In this case, luckily, we were able to take the bus, although it was about an hour-long ride. The bus stop for Jinjiangli was literally just a random spot on a country road about 20 minutes' walk from the nearest diaolou (or any building for that matter). We made the walk and enjoyed the nice weather as well as the peace and quiet of the countryside:
Not very well-marked tourist attractions:
And this was the main road to the village, blocked by cows:
We did make it to the diaolou, of course, and the pictures don't do them justice at all:
Even though the Kaiping area diaolou have been UNESCO World Heritage Sites since 2007, the tourism industry just doesn't exist yet. That region is almost entirely-untouched by Westerners and even domestic Chinese tourists. It felt so different going somewhere so far off the beaten track, but I can say without any trace of a doubt that it was (by far) my favorite part of the trip. My confidence in my Chinese communication skills has also gotten a tremendous boost since then.
Well, we wanted to head back to Hong Kong in the afternoon, but first we stopped to have lunch and buy some souvenirs. We found a shop selling wonton soup for RMB 5 (~ US$0.75), and had our meal there:
Just one shop away, we discovered another hidden treasure: a traditional Chinese tea shop! The three older guys working there were, like everyone else, extremely friendly and totally free of any English-speaking capabilities. Both Magda and I wanted to buy some quality Pu Erh tea and, luckily, the shop happened to be a specialty Pu Erh shop. The guys who owned the shop insisted that, if we had the time, we should sit and sample the tea (since tea is meant to be drunk slowly and leisurely) before buying. Since we did indeed have the time, we had tea ceremony and chit-chatted with the three shushu in the tea-shop for a good 1.5 hours. I felt pleasantly surprised at how freely we could converse in Chinese, and it certainly felt good for my ego. We talked about the finer, more delicate qualities of Pu Erh tea, about Kaiping's famous seafood, and about American basketball (there's a lot of fans in China). I ended up as translator between Magda and the tea-shop gentlemen, but I think I was used to it by then.
Eventually, we both ended up buying some tea, although she bought much more than I did. Sara, you'll be happy to know that I finally found you some delicious high-quality Pu Erh tea cakes. I know exactly how good the tea is since I sampled about 8-9 cups of it myself! I'll mail it to you soon, but only after I get back from Xi'an.
After the tea shop visit, we bought tickets back to Hong Kong at the Kaiping Long-Distance Bus Station. It took us 4 hours, but we finally made it back. All in all, I had a lot of fun, although I'm covered in super-itchy, kind of painful bug bites. Even so, the sites were all fantastic, and the people were even better. However, let me say this: If you don't speak Chinese or if you're not travelling with someone who speaks Chinese rather fluently, DO NOT go to Kaiping. You need a lot of Chinese just to get by and, truth be told, the same thing goes for everywhere we went other than Guangzhou. As you can guess, I spoke more English in the first hour since arriving back in Hong Kong than I did for the entire 5 days in Guangdong. So how do I know if I like China? It may seem crazy, but I'm already missing it and ready to jump back into the game. Watch out, Xi'an...Guangdong was just a warm-up.
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