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The Qingyuan Trilogy-Part 1
Sunday, April 24, 2005-6:15 PM
Beijiang and Waterfalls With No Water
The teachers that day came from half a dozen countries and spoke just as many languages. Chinese, Japanese, Russian, American, British, and Canadian citizens were all aboard the bus to Qingyuan in northern Guangdong Province.
And there was one guy whose origins are still a mystery. He could have held a South African, Swiss, or French passport. I never really knew and was afraid to ask.
Qingyuan has a two thousand year history. One tenth of Guangdong falls under its jurisdiction. Qingyuan has the largest population of minorities in Guangdong Province, mostly Yao and Zhuang.
The plan as it was laid out in the email had us leaving Guangzhou at eight in the morning and returning between four and five in the afternoon. Actually we wouldn't return to Guangzhou until around nine o'clock. I had something to do with that, but that comes later.
Our tour guide really wanted to do a good job. She spoke good English and from the moment the bus pulled away from the gates of Guangdong Technical University to begin its two-hour trip to Qingyuan, she started talking.
She assumed we not only knew nothing about China, but also that we nothing about anything at all. I think she thought the best tour guide is the tour guide who keeps talking.
I stopped listening when, after we pulled on the highway, she announced, "This is an expressway." I felt bad not listening, but I needed some rest. She did in fact do a good job that day.
Our first stop was the North River (Beijiang), a tributary of the Pearl River.
The water wasn't clear. It was a murky brown color. The rolling hills on each side on each bank of the river were covered with with trees. There were a couple other barges ferrying tourists and other things up and down the river and smaller boats with fisherman here and there.
Beijiang doesn't quite have the dramatic impact of Lijiang in Guangxi, but it's a lot closer to Guangzhou than Guilin.
Peter walked out of the cabin on to the deck to get some fresh air. I followed him out there to take photographs. That wouldn't be the only time that day I followed Peter into trouble with the tour guide.
I walked over to the edge of the deck and noticed how easy it would have been for me to fall into the river. There was no railing and lots of things to trip over.
The tour guide walked up to us and politely said, "Safety first." Peter and I went back inside the boat.
We stopped at a Buddhist temple. The tour guide and foreign affairs office started arguing about how much time we should spend there. The tour guide suggested two hours. The foreign affairs office thought ten minutes was more appropriate. The issue was left unresolved as we started to split up and explore the temple ourselves.
I wonder when tourism replaced Buddhism as the religion practiced at these temples. Hans commented about Buddhist temples in China, "When you've seen one, you've seen 'em all."
Against the advice of the foreign affairs office, a few teachers insisted on walking up some stairs behind the main temple that led to an alleged waterfall. The foreign affairs office relented and a couple of us made our way up.
There wasn't much at the top. Just a couple more temples that looked like they didn't get visited much and no waterfall. Where was the waterfall?
The tour guide explained that there was a waterfall, just no water. A waterfall with no water. Sounds like a clever way to market a pile of rocks as a tourist attraction.
On the way back to the boat I cut the big toe of my right foot on a step. That injury slowed me down the rest of the day.
Lunch was served on the boat. Seafood, chicken, pumpkin and soup, served on metal dishes. I hate eating seafood from metal dishes. History suggests it's a harbinger of food poisoning.
The next stop was sold as a beach. It could have been described better as a sandbar. A few minutes after we docked, a guy drifted up in a small boat and unloaded a box of fireworks. He just waits for tourists to show up and then tries to sell them fireworks.
He wasn't an aggressive salesman and didn't seem to care that nobody bought anything. As we boarded our boat to leave, he quietly packed up his things and moved on.
Peter, Hans, and I spent most of the return trip on the deck again. (The tourist guide let us sit out there.) The trip back was slow because we were going against the current.
As we got closer to the dock, we saw more and more boats, more and more tourists. Despite the serene environment, the Chinese on the boats were keeping themselves busy with Mah-jiang and Karoake.
I had suffered a small injury and been scolded by the tour guide once. Next we were going to see more waterfalls.
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