Journey to the World

Congjiang. I woke up at 10:00. Having intentions to stay another day in the hostel, I packed a small bag and went to the reception to pay for the next day. The reception lady gave me the deposit I paid the night before for the key (10 yuan). She refused that I stay another day.

It seemed a little odd so Insisted on staying. Then the owner of the place came in and told me this is not a hotel so I cannot stay any more days. Since my Mandarin was not good enough to understand what they wanted, I left the place. They pointed towards a nearby hotel (an expensive one). Another hostel look-alike refused to give me a room as well. The official hotels for tourists are expensive so instead of sleeping in Congjiang, I headed to Basha village, located ten kilometers from the city. This village is known as a hunters village still dressing and working like they did in old times.

I left my huge bag in the bus station of Congjiang (4 yuans per day). There’s no direct bus to Basha, so to get get there you have to take the minivan (30 yuan) or a motorcycle (20 yuan). I settled with a local motorbike driver for 15 yuan and we were on our way to Basha.

Basha village is on a mountain top 20 minutes drive from the city. There are numerous hostels. I entered one of them called Guns Group. Room pricing with showers is 60 yuans. There is a 3-bed dormitory for 20 yuan (per bed). If you get lucky the room will be completely empty.

Basha is a small village. On the main road there’s a stage where locals performs. Turns out that I just missed a show. It was performed at 10:00 but timetables are changing.

The main part of Basha is on the slopes of the mountain. You have to use the stairs leading down. On the way there are wooden house, small children run on in the trail. Villagers dry corn in the windows, and within the houses women iron fabrics using large hammers.

After a ten minutes walk I arrived in a wooden house. A man walked out of the house carrying a short sword (or a big knife) tied to his belt. He suggested that I enter his house. Inside he showed me work tools, traditional clothing and the strange bandanna he had on wore on his head. That man was one of the hunters, not so easy to locate in the village. He displayed his hunting rifle which had a long heavy barrel. We went outside after he wore his hunting clothes. There a small bottle attached to his belt, probably holding water. He also carries a small bag with bullets for his rifle.

I asked to take his photograph and he agreed. He demonstrated a few hunting positions, and even let me shoot his gun using live ammunition (!). The gun doesn’t have any thrust but is very noisy. Looking backward it seems pretty dangerous as the rifle, seen in the picture, is old and primitive.

Later on the hunter took out from the house a wind musical instrument and showed me how to play. It requires strong lungs and a lot of air to be able to play for more than a short time. Before we took part I gave the hunter 10 yuan for the time he dedicated for me (he didn’t ask for money). As I saw him get enthusiastic by the one dollar bill I carried in my wallet, I also gave this to him. This was the only villagers I’ve met to whom I gave money. Generally speaking, it is not recommended to give money to locals whether they ask you or not, so they would not turn into beggers. This is especially true for children.

The trail went on down the mountain. I met a woman holding a hoe trying to shape the dirt trail into stairs. I asked her for a photograph. Surprisingly she unraveled her hair for the photo. Her hair was over a meter long, almost reaching the ground. In return I offered heloing her with the hoe. She looked pleased as I helped her with her work.

The rest of the trail goes through rice fields to the unknown. There doesn’t seem to be anything interesting so I started getting back to the village. In Basha village, locals dry the rice differently than in other villages I’ve visited in Guizhou. They hang the rice on large wooden hangers. They stay there in the sun till they get dried.

Other sights in the village’s trails – a local woman burns weeds, mixing them with water in order to create black color. This color is probably used to color her hair. An art student sits in front of a wooden house trying to recreate it on paper, and other sights you can see in small villages such as Basha.

Back to the main road, a famous hunters delightfully gets photographed along with his wife. In the photos he looks pretty impressive, a little scary. Looking at him in reality you discover he’s short, very short.

I had some more time till it gets dark so I walked on the main road outside the village to see where it leads. By the sunset villagers return to the village carrying rice on their shoulders. It is now the end of October. As I kept walking, more and more villagers appeared, some of which were too shy to let me take their photo.

I walked in that dirt road for quite some time. As I’ve realized it doesn’t lead anywhere interesting, I signaled a motorcycle driver and asked to get a ride to get to the end of this road. As he was driving he told me the next destination is dozens of kilometers far from where I was at. Since it started to get dark I asked him to drop me off near one of the isolated houses on the way. I entered that house which looked like a small farm, and asked for a ride back to Basha village. It was now kilometers away from that house. I communicated with the an old female resident using Mandarin and hand signals. She referred me to her son who looked 16 years old. We took a motorbike for a small charge and got back to Basha.

In the evening at the hotel, I met two Chinese travelers from Beijing. A fashion designer and a photographer who once was the soloist in a rock band. He played for us using a miniature guitar that he bought the other day in the nearby Zhaoxing village.

There’s no street light in Basha in the night. Locals carry flashlights and in short there’s absolutely nothing to do after dark.

 

This article was published at 19-10-2008 Time: 13:39 and belongs to categories Basha, Far East Travel Journal 2008 - 2009, Villages, Guizhou Province, China, Congjiang, Rice fields. You can follow comments to this article using the feed RSS 2.0. You can post a comment, or trackback from your website.