I went to china for a tour holiday and travel within Guizhou and Hunan, mainly visiting the scenic hills and waterfalls of Guizhou and going to Zhangjiajie in Hunan.
Here are the highlights of day 5: Shopping, travel from Guiyang, Guizhou province to FengHuang, Hunan province
We first visited a tea and herbal shop, then went to a traditional craft shop selling Guizhou embroidery, traditional clothing, and jade and crystal ornaments.
This is the sample tea served to us. The background is the brand and the name of the tea shop.
Here is a photo of the god of wealth at one corner of the craft shop.
And this is the mythical animal which is believed to help in attracting and retaining wealth. I guess it worked for the shop that sells them, if you believe in that.
For the ladies, and for the gentlemen to avoid.
Sleep in style with this jade head pillow. Fortunately for my bank account, I prefer mine soft, regular pillow.
Noooo... not another waterfall.
And if you like it more natural, this crystal may be for you.
Or if you prefer it to be processed (carved) then this may be it? Still no?
I like this one the best, very local. But I resist the call of the cash register, so I took a photo only.
Later we visited a Baoshutang outlet, which was famous (some people consider notorius) for selling Baufuling, the medicine which was made from golden centipede plus other ingredients to treat burns and scalding.
In my first trip in China (1998 - Guiling/Beijing/Xian) I remembered it was a guy who demonstrated by scalding his hand holding a burning iron chains. After applying Baofuling and waited for 10 minutes or so, he can clap his hand and we can see that there is no scaliding injuries on his hand.
In my second last trip in China (2005 - ChengDu/JiuZhaiGuo/HwangLong) I remembered it was a young lady who demonstrated the same thing. So they have upped the stake. May be that was a response to a skeptical audience who made a remark about men's hand have thicker skin? I have no idea but I do not want to see that demonstration again.
To our reliefs, there was no more demonstration of holding hot burning chains by the shop attendant.
We went for lunch and served Beijing GaoYa (Beijing Roast Duck). It was delicious.
Sorry there is no photo. I was busy eating.
After lunch we shopped for some fruits from enterprising locals selling their mandarin oranges and persimons to tourist who had lunch at restaurants in the city.
Just 5 minutes after we board the bus, our Singapore tour guide lady asked the bus to go back to the restaurant because she left her jacket there. She was lucky that she can still find her jacket.
Then the rest of the trip was a boring bus ride, where most of us catch up with our sleep. I was really bored as I cannot sleep in bus. My only excitement is when we came across these two chimneys that looks like those of nuclear reactors. However, I was puzzled why it is so close to the highway and residential area. I mean this is not Springfield (The Simpson), so it could not be a nuclear reactor. So what is it? Please let me know if you know, by leaving a comment below.
Along the way almost reaching FengHuang, we were trapped in a traffic jam where vehicles are queueing to buy petrol.
Anyway, the best story of that incident is the tour group having sit in the bus too long and drank a bit too much liquid, would like to have a toilet break. Unfortunately there is no public toilet nearby.
It was dark and the nearest covered place without much vegetation (for the fear of snake and other insect) is a shed where broken down trucks are being repaired. So armed with torchlight we made a pilgrimage there and take turn to relief ourself.
After the relief, the traffic start moving slightly. It took about 90 minutes for us to clear the jam. I am not sure if the local tour guides called police to manage the traffic, because I saw some policemen directing traffic because practically there is only 1 lane open due to the queue to buy petrol which is about 1 km long.
We then hurried for dinner, and then rushed to FengHuang. It was closing time already. In fact, most shops except a few are open. Most that are open are bar and karaoke kind, which we were not interested in.
Here are some night shots I manage to take.
Finally, we then went to the hotel in AngShun to recuperate and recharge our batteries (not the picture above). In fact, this hotel is the worst hotel we ever stayed during the entire travel. The bathroom leaked, the air conditioner dripped, and the bathroom looked like half renovated. But we were dog tired, and slept anyway, despite the grumble.
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