Ni hau everyone,
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After climbing Mount Emeishan, essentially a 3000m high staircase covered in equal measure by mist, fir trees, azaleas, and Chinese day-trippers, I took a three-day ferry trip down the Yangtse, through the Three Gorges, to Wuhan. These gorges are soon to be covered up by the world’s largest dam, which, once completed, will stretch 550km back from the Dam wall at Yichang, to Chonqing. From Wuhan I took an overnight train to Guilin and a bus from there to Yangshuo.
Yangshuo (map), in Cantonese South Eastern China, is another one of those destinations to which back-packers flock in droves. One of those places in fact which I have sworn to avoid. The street-side cafes are thronged with Western tourists listening to blues, reading Hemingway, and eating that perennial favourite; banana pancakes.
One of the restaurants, Suzanna’s, once entertained Jimmy Carter and includes dog, rat, snake and frog on its try-anything menu. For $3 the staff will even find you a Chinese date for the evening.
I feel I have a confession to make. The truth is that I have had a change of heart lately. All things considered, if I am to make Sydney by Christmas then I still have enormous distances to cover in a very short time. The only way I can do this and see a reasonable number of sites, as well as maintaining my budget, health and indeed my sanity, is by sticking to routes covered by public transport.
As a Dutch fellow traveller posited (one evening, after a few Tsing Tao’s), “The well trodden route is not well trodden for nothing”.
Yangshuo County, in Guanxi province, is renowned for it’s exquisite natural scenery. The county is set on a flat plain of verdant rice paddies. Scattered around this plain like pimples, rise shear pinnacles of karst limestone, each no more than 200 metres in height. The town itself is nestled within a circle of these peaks, all of which are clearly visible from the tourist quarter.
Unusually for China, none of the town buildings are taller than three stories. However, I suspect this has more to do with the local geology – limestone foundations combined with a wet, tropical climate create the perfect conditions for sinkholes – than out of any aesthetic concern on the part of local authorities. The Chinese, in common with other communists, are hardly noted for their architectural subtleties.
On my second evening in Yangshuo, taking the advice of my hotel staff, I decided to climb one of the less frequented peaks, the 210m TV peak, in order to watch the sun set over the town.
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After some difficulty finding the starting point I began to climb at 16:00. Having recently been trekking in Nepal, Tibet and Emeishan, I have never been fitter. I bounded up the steps two at a time, my Walkman playing in my ears, stopping occasionally to admire the view: The river Li winding lazily through the town; the paddy fields golden in the autumn sun; the distant peaks shaded purple and blue.
After climbing for twenty minutes, I glanced up and saw a huge spider’s web spread across the path in front of me, with a spider the size of my fist hanging in the middle, inches from my nose. Instinctively I jumped back in fright. Realising too late that there wasn’t anything to step back on to, I tried to turn around but my left foot caught on
something and I fell, landing with all my weight on the back of my heel, crushing it beneath me.
Sitting like a hurdler, my right leg stretched in front of me, half way up the hill with not a soul in sight, I prayed for the first time in a year. Please God, don’t let it be broken. I stood up shakily, removed my sandal and examined the foot.
There were two minor abrasions on my toes that were bleeding profusely, and there was already severe, but localised, swelling around the Talo-fibular ligament. A good sign, I thought. I tentatively put some weight on the foot. It was too soon to feel the pain yet, but I didn’t think it was broken.
I began to hobble downhill until this became too painful. I tried hopping but tripped and fell, the pain bringing tears to my eyes. A curse on my joss, I thought. Where are all the bloody tourists when you need them? After a while I turned around and began hopping backwards, face towards the hill, using my hands and right foot to walk
with. In this manner, after numerous rest stops, and sweating freely, I arrived back in the village before nightfall.
At the first house I came to, the family gathered in the doorway and stood there laughing at my predicament. At the second house, the elderly occupant stood up and invited me to sit in his place while he went to fetch help. He returned five minutes later with two others and a cycle rickshaw. Together they loaded me gently into the back of the rickshaw and then cajoled it down several stairs and slopes to the nearest street. I bowed my thanks to the old man and his companion as the rickshaw driver set off towards the hospital.
At the hospital, my kindly driver conducted all the signing-in formalities on his own, paid what needed to be paid and then led the way, with me hopping behind him, to a Doctor’s examining room. In the far corner, behind a desk next to the window, sat a very young man wearing the obligatory white coat and that universal of all badges,
a stethoscope.
The Doctor spoke little English, but we communicated admirably nonetheless. He pointed at my left foot, the ankle swollen like a balloon; the toes dark red with dried blood, and raised his eyebrows.
‘Yes,” I nodded. “That is the injured foot.”
He pointed at my left knee and I shook my head vigorously. We repeated this process for my right foot, right knee, arms and hands. He sucked his pencil thoughtfully and pointed at my head, repeating the question.
I thought of saying:
“Well, I cannot be sure you understand, but I think I have a screw loose.”
For the sake of brevity I shook my head instead.
His brow furrowed in concentration. “How long?…” He asked, tapping his wristwatch demonstrably. I looked at the time and was astonished to discover that it had only been 40 minutes since I had fallen.
“Si shi.” I said, emphasising the time with counting signs. He nodded, wrote some Chinese characters on a note pad, tore the top sheet off and handed it to my driver who picked up my bag and led the way to the X-ray department.
We returned half an hour later with a note from the Radiologist and a photograph of my bones. Seeing the Doctor’s brow beginning to furrow again I took pity on him and pointed to the relevant passage in my
indispensable Mandarin Phrasebook. It shows the relevant English phrase printed next to the Pinyin (for pronunciation) and Chinese equivalents;
“Is it broken/bruised/sprained?”
With a look of relief he pointed at the Chinese characters for ‘sprained’.
He prescribed some unknown tablets, possibly steroids, and some Chinese traditional medicine that he indicated I should rub on the bruised area. While my ever-patient driver hurried off to pay for the medicines, the Doctor indicated that I was free to leave. And so I left the hospital without having had my wounds examined or cleaned, without plasters, bandages, crutches or even painkillers.
So much for the much lauded Chinese National Health Service. The only thing that can be said for it is that it was cheap. My total bill, including the rickshaw driver, coming to $15; less than a quarter of the excess on my insurance.
When I got back to my hotel room I broke out my medical pack, for once glad that I had carried it all this way. I bathed my foot in an iodine solution, painted the wounds with Betadine and covered them with plasters. Unable to find any ice, I soaked my foot in cold water before elevating it overnight.
The following day, my hotel room neighbour, a Physiotherapist from Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, confirmed the diagnosis, provided me with the names of some anti-inflammatory drugs and gave me some Tubagrip to compress the swelling. Thank goodness for tourists, hey?
Snuggled cosily in the South Western corner of China (bordering on Tibet, Burma, Laos and Vietnam), Yunnan Province is home to one third of all Chinese minority groups. Its mild climate also means that it is responsible for a third of China’s entire agricultural produce.
Am currently soaking up the ex-pat atmosphere in Kunming (map),
enjoying the hospitality of a French friend I met while travelling through Tibet and trying to forget how well the Pound is doing against the Dollar. Dominique is a full time Chinese language student at the local university as well as a part-time photographer and travel guide author for Asia Horizons.
Tomorrow I catch the French built metre-gauge train for the Vietnamese border at Lao Cai. Will then be carrying on to Hanoi and down the coast to Saigon.
