Kielisoppa: Leaving Wuchuan

We were due to leave Wuchuan at 9 am but woke up 25 to 9. Uuups. We really got going and made it to the car at 5 past 9. Our exit was rather badly timed as we crashed with a morning wedding preparations. The road back was exactly as the road there. This time out guide suggested we stopped for lunch in Caiping city. It is between the boat museum and GZ. Caiping city is where USA employed men to build the great railway to the wild west. While many Chinese stayed in China some returned home and build huge mansions to live their pension age out in comfort.

For lunch we stopped at another tourist bus serving restaurant. They had a good sized vegetable plot there for the business and to my hilarity who did I find among the New Year decorations but Santa himself!!

The staff was very friendly, obviously a family of four generations. The we looking at us eating rice cakes with raspberry jam for pudding. So we made them one too....a bite in front of us, she was obviously surprised that the taste was pleasant, and then to the kitchen with the rest of the family in hot pursuit where they all got a bite each.

Our destination was Zili village. It is a thousand year old place that reaches over a very large area. A preserved heritage site in China and a hot destination for tourists. We were so out of season and still had to share with five bus parties. The villagers still live there and farm the land as it has always been farmed. They are allowed to use their houses for business and many have "peasant kitchens" or a small trinket stall at their house. In the end of every financial year the government splits the profits with the villagers.

It really was a trip to another world. The houses are very tall to minimise land waste. The one we visited had five floors and two roof terraces, one upon the other. Ground floor had a large kitchen, but two of the upper floors had one too. It was a floor per son, but there was a beautiful suite for the grandparents, a special room for the eldest daughter, a floor for nursery.Altar for the ancestors was at the roof terrace entrance. Between the houses the paddy fields expanded to every direction, there was a stoned village square, a communal threshing floor that still had rice stalks from the last harvest and narrow granite paths that twisted between the fields and houses.

From the roof tops we could see the next village and the one after that. Before the days of roads people moved around the countryside along the narrow, but surprisingly fast waterways and literally stepped off the boat at their own front door.

On the road away we stopped to photograph the local burial ground. The poshest we've seen. Often they are earth mounts on a hill side covered in white cement. These were beautiful brick structures and first one with it's own temple.

Again back in GZ. Another two road crashes. Cold, torrential rain. Let's see what tomorrow brings.