itura_ad_Asiam: Hiking in Zhejian

11 November

So last month, I just had to get out of the city. I found a quick fix through the group Yejo. I pay them 700 kuai, which is just over 100 USD, and they provide all the transport, food, and entertainment sans beer of course for a two night and two day trip out into the hills south of Shanghai. Before I go further, I have one question: Would you drink this???

Now I have several versions of 'bathtub alcohol' on my various trips and while it sometimes had poisonous ingredients like wormwood or was sold on the side of the road in a water bottle or had a worm at the bottom of the bottle; never have I encountered all three combined into one. No one in the group had any idea if the snake was poisonous, what alcohol was used, or how long it had been sitting there. Overall taste is something similar to vodka or rikkia or ouzo, but instead of the smooth crisp taste of vodka or the sweet burn from ouzo and rikkia there was a deep earthy musk that clung to your taste buds after they finished burning. One of the guys on the trip, French by nationality, said that the old generation when he grew up would drink a glass of this regularly to keep their joints in good condition. It could have been worse/ more entertaining according to another Frenchman who had recently been in Vietnam and saw a drinking game where the beating heart of the snake was dropped into the glass and you had to finish before it stopped beating. Hmmmm ... something to look for if I make it to Vietnam I suppose, but back to Zhejian.

The weather was foggy with intermittent misting, making long range landscape shots go grey. The fresh air was delicious, and the hike a good mix up to my mostly sedentary lifestyle. I think the best part of this trip was that it was not designed to be a hike to push your physical limits, but more of a nature excursion, allowing me to get up close to a Chinese farming community. This little community was about four to five hours dive south from Shanghai, and to tell you how off the beaten path it is, our driver got into a heated discussion with the GPS supposedly giving us directions. If you are really curious and want to Google the general area try: Xinchang National Park, Zhejian, China.

The first day was spent on a gentle walk about up into the hills to the villages and fields set even further back from the roads and main town area. What is really amazing is how the land has been developed to produce crops. This might be because I am from the Midwest where we have rolling wheat fields in Kansas, sunken beds of corn around the rivers in Saint Louis, and the never ending flat fields of soy beans in Illinois. Theoretically, I know that steppe farming exists, and has existed for centuries, but to see it first hand where each family has a steppe or two that is carefully sectioned into different products is amazing. The first question I asked myself of course was: Where is the mechanical farming equipment?

Well not only is there the ability to afford it, but I also don't think that many of the mechanical farming implements we use in the USA would make this community more efficient.The steppe beds are small, narrow and literally carved into the mountains after generations of use. There is no way to efficiently use a John Deer here not to mention one of the larger harvesters. The residents have made use of what technology is widely available. In China, in general, it is common to modify an electric scooter or bicycle to have a bed that can haul a substantial load through narrow streets or up narrow, winding mountain roads.

One of my favorite parts was the look into the tea industry that we got. This village does grow tea, but I think that cotton was the main crop -- this is just on my observations, not actual data. In any case, the tea crop has already been harvested for the year, and now it was time to replant and nurture existing tea plants. So tea plants are short little bushes that are only about a meter tall at maximum that I saw. And here is how they are apparently planted. I cannot say that I understand how sticking a leaf (and not an actual tea leaf that one drinks, but just a leaf off of the bush) will somehow turn into a tea bush. I can only show you what I saw, and what I understood from some second hand translation from our guides. Interesting either way, and if anyone wants to explain it to me with easy to follow words -- please comment!

The next part of our excursion took us straight up into the sharp peaks overlooking the village. Not much to share here since most of the view was hemmed in by low clouds, and it started drizzling on us. I am sure that in clear weather, the view is provincially charming. Here is an a pretty stunning shot, nonetheless.

The last part of our little tour visited a Buddhist temple being rebuilt as well as more fields, and one in house textile factory. The temple was remarkable peaceful despite the ongoing construction. The guides told us that the temple was originally thousands of years old, but was torn down sometime during the Cultural Revolution and now the village is rebuilding it.