Bumping along on our third bus trip for the day (on our way to Lishui) we began to move away from business of industralised China and into the mountainous region of Zhejiang's deep south near the border of Fujian province. Despite accumulating many more hours of bus travel time (a tally that we have long lost count of), the joys of journeying into the unknown were as clear as the bright blue sky above us. Rolling along a road that resemble the rimutakas in New Zealand (a good cruising spot for the bike, mumbles and pops!) we were engulfed in beautiful forests made up of pine and bambo. As a huge rainbow danced across the sky we embarked on our journey down to the valley floor where we passed the crumbling remains of villages standing exposed to the elements. We journeyed along a beautiful river that has yet to succumb to the dark (green) side as a result of feeding the occupants of a nearby town - we had arrived in Jingning.
After a long day of bus travelling with only a vague idea of how we were going to get to our desired destination we were starting to fade - basically Liv needed to lie down, Adam needed food, and we both needed it now! Mounting our packs we were greeted by a friendly lady wanting us to stay at her place so we popped up for a look - the look was as quick as her price was laughable and so we walked off, with her yelling behind us successive reductions in price. The obvious attempts to catch the foreigners in a price hike often backfires, as if she had started with a reasonable price we would have most likely roughed it in her concrete cell! We set out to find another hotel and after walking passed an extreamly expensive one (well out of the adlibing budget) and then not seeing another one for some time we were starting to get on edge, however the adlibing ways struck gold again as we stumbled across a brand new hotel with prices well below what our guide had told us to expect.
Revived from our short rest we set off for town in search of food, and were quickly impressed by a town that we had been told to expect little from, a clear example of why you have to see the world through your own eyes and in your own way. We have come across travellers who will swear blue murder that a certain destination is the worst place on earth and then very next day find someone that did not want to leave the place as they loved it so much!Wandering along we passed a number of very trendy shops selling jeans and other clothes that are designer standard and all completely original we're sure, as well as book shops where half the town's kids were sitting quietly reading, and even an outdoor theatre where the adults who were not playing cards or mahjong gathered to socialise the night away. We arrived at a small night market where everyone was selling either fruit, sandals, kebabs or well thats about it...but oh my goodness the kebabs were so great - especially the mushroom and chilli ones!
After bloging ourselves up to the present we set off still needing to find dinner, grabbing a few more kebabs to keep us fueled and up to the task! After finding more water for tomorrow and fruit for breakfast, we finally found a cheap noodle shop were we scoffed down a 3 kwai meal (NZ 55cents) and headed back to our home away from home to sleep our way into a new day.
Adlibing it into the Jingning countryside.
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