Rain and Sickness

Sunday, May 16, 2010--Side Trip to Xidi   We were lucky with the weather this morning.  We awoke to sunshine.  The rain has held off for a while.  All the forecasts say its coming, however, giving 80-100% chances!  That means we won't be able to go to Huangshan Mountain in the next couple of days as we had planned.   Breakfast at the hotel was more authentic than previous ones.  Our boiled eggs had been boiled in 5-Spice and had been cracked so the seasoning could get into the eggs after they were boiled.  We were offered menu choices that were all Chinese.  Mine was steamed pork with dark, chopped vegetables.  Wes' was sticky rice with chicken.  They came from the kitchen in small steamer boxes.  Mine had more flavor.  Wes' was a bit bland.    With the sun still shining, we headed for the bus station and caught a bus to take us to Xidi, a World Heritage Site village which is where part of the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was made.  We had to go first to a bigger town where we changed buses.  By the time we got to the first bus station, Wes was feeling sick.  He rushed to the toilet taking a packet of tissues with him (since paper is not provided in public toilets here).  Only squat toilets were available as expected.  He had both diarrhea and vomiting and looked quite pale.  There are a couple of possible causes.  It was exactly 3 hours after we had breakfast, so something he ate was probably a factor in the diarrhea.  But we had been traveling behind a truck producing massive amounts of smoke and fumes and our bus had been twisting and winding on the roadway.  Therefore, motion sickness and or the fumes could have also been a factor.  Anyway, he came out of the toilet before our mini-bus left, so we headed on to Xidi.   We had an interesting experience taking the mini-bus.  As usual, several people read the Chinese letters in my guidebook for Xidi and made sure we were getting the right bus.  After we were on it, I decided I should check with passengers to know the "local" price to assure we were not charged too much.  I turned to a lady beside me.  She was quite elderly, and when I showed her the Chinese letters, she made a face and motioned, "No, no," with her hand.  The lady behind me who was also elderly, did the same.  Apparently neither of them could read.  However, when I pulled out my money and pointed to myself, they quickly understood.  The first lady held up 2 fingers indicating 2 yuan.  Then the second lady tapped me on the shoulder and pointed first to Wes and then to me and held up 4 fingers indicating that it would be 4 yuan for both of us.    Xidi is set in the mountains with pine trees and tall bamboo all around.  The town itself consists of white structures with dark roof tiles.  It was a wealthy town at one time, so many of the homes are large with multiple rooms.  They all feature fancy doorways and large rooms designed with roof openings to let in light and air.  We toured a few of the old homes, but mostly we just wandered the narrow, winding streets.  The buildings in the first few blocks were filled with shops whose owners called to us as we passed.  But we got beyond that where we could walk in peace and could see glimpses of local life.  There were many students making paintings of the village in various forms--water colors, oils, etc.  We often communicated briefly with them and even had our photos taken with the teacher and a few of the students.  We left the village and walked up the side of a hill to a pagoda to get an overview of the village.  A young man and two young women joined us.  The young man talked to us and took photos with us.    We left Xidi hoping to go to another World Heritage Site village, but we discovered the next bus to there would be too late (14:00) for us to guarantee that we would get back to the hotel in Tunxi (since the last bus to Tunxi was scheduled to leave at 17:00).  We just waited until 13:30 and took a direct bus back to Tunxi.  That was a good plan, because the rain started just about an hour later.   Wes remained well for the rest of the day.  We stopped to buy instant noodles and stayed inside the room rather than go out in the rain.  We went through the guidebooks searching for alternative places to visit if the rain developed as expected.    Monday, May 17, 2010--Tunxi   As expected, the rain came down hard during the night and into the morning.  It confirmed to us that we needed to make alternative plans for the next few days.  There would be no pleasure in climbing a mountain in the rain, and the steepness of the trails would make it dangerous.  However, Huangshan Mountain would have been a wonderful one to experience.   We considered going to Yangzhou just north of Nanjing for a couple of days.  But when we checked train times, it was not going to work out well.  The only direct train to there would leave here at 3:45 in the morning.  No trains worked for connecting to there through Nanjing without an overnight stay.  Therefore, we decided just to go to Nanjing and stay 5 nights/4 days rather than the 3 nights/2 days we had in our original plan.  Fortunately, Nanjing is just north of the line for the heavy rain, so we should be fine other than the fact that more rain is expected near the weekend.   After making those decisions, we started working on a booking for a hotel in Nanjing for the first 2 nights.  We thought it would be interesting to stay in two places rather than just try to extend our reservation where we will be the last 3 nights.  Unfortunately, our first choice for a hotel did not work; it was already fully booked for the two days.  We have now sent a request for another hotel.  We'll keep trying until we find one.    The rain comes and goes.  We were able to walk for a while this morning in sunshine before it returned again.  We are now waiting for another clearing or light spell so that we can go to the train station and try to buy tickets for one of the trains tomorrow morning for Nanjing.  Will update the blog again later with information about how it all works out.