People's Power in the Disco Hour of China - Part 17 - Wedding Blriss - Day 11

We wake up (not having the nightmares of being raped by prostitues) - but the room is fairly hot making us a little bothersome. We have a 6:45am start for a 8am tour pick up outside the Backstreet Youth Hostel.

As we leave the room - the hotel atrium smells like bacon - which gives us the sick idea of having McDonalds for breakfast. We venture towards the local McDonalds only to find out that the 24 hour McDonalds wasn't open. So its crazy bakery again for breakfast...!

Upon arrival at the hostel - we discover that the hostel have organised another couple to go on the private Li River cruise with us - so that means it only costs us 250 Yuan each for the trip - bonus!

We hang out at the hostel for about 40 minutes (arrgggh!) until the tour comes and picks us up. We were just about the only other western people on the tour (apart from one ugly white guy with a Chinese wife - which seems to be a common occurance over here). Our tour guide - called "Nick" (very chinese sounding!) greets us and explains that a couple of things aren't included - including a Zhuang dance performance (optional) and a 10 yuan mini bus ride up to the Ping An village (as the big bus is too big to fit on the small, dangerous road).

As the bus completes picking up guests - most of which come from Hong Kong. The guide then goes onto say that he will speak in engrish most of the time as the Hongkers people don't really understand the guide very well (as he speaks Mandarian and they speak Cantonese and understand English better than Mandarian!).

A few jems that Nick mentioned - that the tour is expensive and if you fall asleep on the bus - you are wasting your money. He also stated that we paid a lot of money for the tour and if you don't like it - then you are wasting your money (of course!). He also said that the road trip up to the Ping An village is scary and dangerous - and expects most people to scream along the way (reassuring!).

The scenary to Longsheng was pretty spectular. The steep and dramatic landscape is fairly breathtaking - and the bus to Longsheng was worth the tour price. Although strangely - most of the Hongkers people had the blinds drawn. According to Ant - this is a pretty common occurance. He was reading a Brian Thatcher book where he was on a bus tour of the Swiss Alps and that most of the people from Hongkers had the bus blinds drawn and were looking at pictures of the Swiss Alps whilst driving past the real Swiss Alps...!

Getting out of Guilin - it feels a lot more like Vietnam in terms of wealth (or lack thereof) and buildings. I guess we were sort of getting used to the new Chinese middle class of Shanghai and Nanjing - it sort of felt good to get out of the city and experience the "real China".

We made a quick pit stop at a tourist ticket checkpoint - complete with touts selling crap. Both Ant and I decided that we should fork out the 40 extra yuan each to see the Zhuang show and have the possibability of getting married to one of them...

The tour bus made a stop at a Zhuang village and we checked out a few Zhuang houses (complete with all the modern cons including TV - where a little local girl was totally fixated with it). There was also a Zhuang wine distillary - where you could taste their wares if you were feeling like a bout of the plauge. The village was also complete with lots of cute puppies everywhere and pigs. I'm starting to feel like we need to declare this countryside adventure to customs officers when we get pack - or else we might appear on an upcoming episode of "Border Security - Australia's Front Line" (cue dramatic music).

We headed to the Zhuang "show". The Zhuang woman grow their hair out to extraordinary lengths and apparently they hold world records in town hair length records or something. They put on a bit of a show (in Chinese - so it was hard to work out what they were going on about) but it was a bit like Chinese line-dancing. And then Nick, the tour guide, said they wanted two male victims - one western and one chinese - to get married. Ant pushed me to volunteer - and I stewpidly did...

They whisked me out the back and put on some wedding outfit. I also forked out 10 yuan so I could give my "bride-to-be" a wedding present. (I'm such a stingy husband).

We were then whisked back out and plonked next to two veiled wives-to-be. We were then given the opportunity to pick a bride (you couldn't see their faces due to the non-see-throughness of the veils). Mine was about 2 meters shorter than myself - but at least she wasn't hit with the ugly stick.

We then did a traditional wedding dance where a group of woman form a ring around the wedding parties and grab the male arses repeatedly (copping-a-feel). I was surprised that I didn't have welts on my dairy-aire after this humilation.

We then shared a couple of shots of plauge inducing local wine stuff - but doing it in a romantic fashion (eg: drinking it over one another shoulders).

We then had to serenade the bride with a love song. I couldn't think at the time (because of the humilation) so I just spat out some "la la la's" - but on retrospect - I think "Like A Virgin" should have sufficed. After the serenading - we each exchanged our crappy gifts - I gave her a "metal" bracelet whilst she gave me a Zhuang man-bag - ohhh trendy.

Whilst I was upholding the sanctity of marriage with a quick sham marriage with a Zhuang bride - Ant was taking about 100 pictures of everything.

The whole tour group after the wedding - joined in on a dance - where the local women would repeated hit their arses on the people next to them. After the dance - we all left the building - where the women repeatedly pinched all of the tourists' arses on the way out. Kinky bunch.

Hopefully that will be the last I'll see of my "Zhuang bride". I hope I won't see her turning up in Australia saying "we are married - i want paper bbeeetch!". Ant did mention that even though the wedding only cost 10 yuan - the divorce could cost 1000000 yuan!

After the Zhuang Dance / Wedding Mecha-spectactular - we changed to a mini-bus and headed to the village of Ping An. Both Ant and I were getting flashbacks to Peru - whereby our crazy driver was pulling hairpin corners at incredible speeds on the wrong side of the road (right next to the 1km ravine on the side of the road). Was this bus driver's name Elvis as well??

When we arrived safely (incredibly) to Ping An - we walked up the path to the village (which was not vehicle accessable). Again - we were getting flashbacks to that Peruvian village near Puno (you know - that communist village that looked like it was in Europe instead). Plus the locals were into embroidery in a big way...!

Anyway - Nick (the tour guide) headed us to a kick-back cafe in town were we ordered the local delicacy of Bamboo cooked rice. I thought I might go vegetarian - and order the "Fresh Millhroom Soup" but it had more chicken in it than "Millhroom".

Ping An is a Zhuang village set at the top of a ridge in Longji Titian - which is chockful of terraced rice fields (a la Bali). Nick (the tour guide) let us all do our own thing for a couple of hours on the proviso that we all get back to the mini bus by 3pm.

Ant and I headed for one of the two peaks of the village. We have both come to the conclusion that most Chinese seem pretty unfit. Not that they are fat or anything - but they are really slow at walking up stairs or walking in general (I don't think it is just a height thing - more of an unfit thing).

The walking path up to the first peak (called Seven Tigers and Two Moons or something) - was full of local touts trying to sell manbags and bracelets (identical to the ones in my sham marriage). It was however - just so good to get out of the cities and to do this sort thing - soak up the somewhat clean air (well cleaner than Shanghai) and see the extraordinary sites and natural beauty of China.

When we hit the top - we made a bypass away from the "put your photo on a tacky mug" deal to another path which went along the ridges of the rice fields to the other peak. We were the only tourists in sight - and we had only crossed one local on our way to the other peak. Defintely - the path less travelled.

After reaching the other peak (and Ant taking about 1000 photos along the way - I'm so not editing these photos when we get back) and keeping an eye on the time - we ventured down a path leading us to the "Park". After another 10 minutes of walking - and getting a bit anxious about getting back to the bus on time - we then backpeddled to the village - but the village was a little more confusing than the "Park" path. But we soon found our bearings and found the path leading back to the carpark (past all of the thousands of booths selling the same stuff... What is it - I'm going to buy that manbag from the 36th booth on the right?).

Thinking we were going to be the last people back to the bus with 5 minutes to spare - we were in fact the first people back. Damn we are power walkers...

After waiting 20 mins (!) for everyone else to drag themselves back - we were all told to get on a bus (full of another group) - but with a much better driver than Elvis II. He had lots of grey hair - which means that he must be a good driver or something - as he tended to stick to the right hand side of the road - and even tooted at hairpin corners to warn others that we were coming... This guy was a rarity in China.

On the way back to Guilin - most of the Hongkerians had closed their blinds (yet again!). Overall - the tour was well worth it (even if Nick wasn't as great - he sort of did a big talk at the start - but didn't really add to much when we were on the tour).

For dinner - I found a Taiwain "Fast Food" Restaurant - where the soups were almost "Australian Chinese Size" (eg: weren't 10 litres big) so we didn't completely overeat.

I sort of went semi-crazy at a "legit" CD and DVD shop. CDs and DVDs are priced about 22-25 yuan (around $4AUD) and mostly appear to be legit. The fake stuff (which Ant bought a couple of foreign language ones - which I'm a bit worried that they will have engrish subtitles) - were about 15 yuan (or $2.50AUD). When I got back to the hotel to check out the merch - it seemed more legit than the stuff from Wal-Mart! Maybe the Chinese government should crack down on Wal-Mart for piracy...!

(Apologies for the Quentin Tarantino like posts out of order - Blogger.com and this internet cafe is working against me in a big way)