The Long Road Home

After getting a bit snarled up in a tricycle rickshaw jam crossing the Gui River I left Wuzhou. Wuzhou’s a nice town. This was sunday morning, and people were pushing toddlers around the square in their pedal cars, and old chaps were sitting in bamboo chairs on the shopping street watching families go by. A balloon seller was walking around with a huge bunch of helium balloons, and the rickshaw tricycle men were creaking along. On the edge of town it was all a bit scrappy with the road down to mud and gravel next to the bus station which was noisy and dirty. The buses stop all over the place to pick up people so you have to watch what you’re doing not to get squashed or stuck.

I took the G321 which goes all the way from Wuzhou up to Guilin and beyond. The road was nice two-lane tarmac and wound along with a line of trees on each side. It (and I) rolled over hills all the way, rising at times high over valleys with paddy fields, stands of bamboo, and low terraces with orange villages far below. I say orange because the earth here is bright orange and the village houses seem to be mostly made of the orange earth, with grey tile roofs. There were a couple of long climbs with hairpins up and down, and fabulous views of far off hills once you’d made it to the top. The road was quiet and you could hear the people working in the paddy fields and vegetable plots talking to each other. As it became evening men and boys were calling their buffalo to keep them straight walking home along the roadside, and there was birdsong or maybe frogs (do they sing?) across the paddy fields.

I arrived in Taiping at sunset. Taiping is a small town and all dust and piles of bricks and rubbish amongst people selling fruit and motorcycle repair places. I have picked one of the two local inns. It’s only 50 RMB per night but a nice old chap in a blue Mao suit very nicely helped me get my bike up the steps, and there’s even hot water. You need a stick to turn on the light which has to be poked to make it go on but seems fine.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 16th, 2006 at 10:42 pm and is filed under On the Road. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.