Crabs with Zhang Yong

One interesting thing about the motel room is that one part of the bathroom is visible to the bedroom, and that part is one wall of the shower, which is fine if you’re a couple, but I wouldn’t want that if I was sharing with a mate (coming to think of it I wouldn’t be sharing a bed either so perhaps they assume a certain intimacy) – Leilei thought it was funny anyway!

Met Zhang Yong again for lunch. He has a Buick. It’s a big American car with leather seats and air-conditioning, although made in Shanghai. I couldn’t see much through the blacked-out windows but I knew we were travelling in style. We went to a restaurant that specialised in crabs, and Leilei enjoyed watching them in their aquarium although didn’t eat any. In fact he hasn’t eaten much since we arrived – Tan is a bit worried; I told her not to worry unless he doesn’t eat for five days – anyway, he has been drinking his milk and that’s got a good deal of his vitamin needs inside.

Yesterday Zhang Yong invited us to more meals but we wanted some time together so although we met him this afternoon for lunch we went our own way to the Xu Jia Hui shopping centre to get Leilei some milk powder and nappies and I went to the book shop to get a couple of parallel text books. On the basement floor of this centre is a great eating-place. It’s actually not different from most English eating places in shopping centres where you choose where to buy your food from and eat in a central eating area, except that the food is fantastic and the choice overwhelming. I had pork with mushrooms on a bed of rice with soup and something else and Tan had something equally appetising, although Leilei didn’t eat his portion. I also had what is probably the most expensive beer I’ll drink this year in China - £1 for a 600ml of Tiger beer.

Leilei's 2nd visit to second home

Arrived in Shanghai Pudong airport at about 3.45pm local time after an uneventful flight thankfully although I was annoyed that China Eastern Airlines didn’t provide Gin and Tonic, nor anything more than beer and wine (and small measures at that). Leilei behaved well on the flight and we pretended he weighed 11kg so he could be put in the baby bed they stick onto the wall in front of you (he’s actually about 14kg) – that really helped – 11 hours with a baby on your lap is not going to give you a comfortable flight.

I had to queue with Leilei for an hour to get our passports stamped – we were in the ‘foreigners’ queue, whereas Tan was in the quicker Chinese queue. By then he was getting adventurous which is not what you want when you have most of the hand luggage (including 6 bottles of alcohol), but we got through eventually without any hassle. Except we couldn’t find mummy at the baggage reclaim place – she arrived later after having had to re-queue due to not having filled in the right papers….ha! I had.

Anyway, we got the no.3 bus, as we had three years’ previously when we first met, and made our way to Xu Jia Hui, which is where we used to live in Shanghai, and where our motel was situated. When we got there we found the rudest taxi driver in Shanghai to take us to the motel – you’d think that giving an address would be good enough, but when he found out it was on a one-way street he wanted to know from which street to enter and complained when we didn’t know, really rudely according to Tan. So anyway I took a mental note of his number (215261) and intend to report him; Shanghai taxi drivers should adhere to a strict behaviour code and get disciplined strongly if they veer from that path.

Finally got to the motel which was clean and simple and all the Xiao Jie (maids) loved Leilei. Tan’s ex-boss Zhang Yong arrived a bit later to take us for a meal in some hotel, which was very nice although we were very tired and I can’t even remember what we ate.

Back to UK via missed connection in Paris

We pretended Leilei hadn't grown in the last few weeks and that he was still 11kg. How it worked I don't know but we managed to get bulkhead seats for him for definitely the last time. The flight was not as easy as coming over here but could have been a lot worse.

But a couple of hours sleep does not put you in good stead to be told you have 40 minutes to get your connection from Paris to London. Why the heck do they sell such tickets when your only chance of making the connection is if you arrive an hour early? As much as we were rushed we clearly missed our connection and had to wait a couple of hours till the next. Boo. But anyway this is a first world problem. We got back to London ok and got home. And had enjoyed a wonderful, albeit far too short, trip back home to get married there and show the fruit of our UK marriage to all the family over there. I can't wait to get back and spend a bit more time there....

Last day in Guangxi

I don't think I woke up early and I had no time to moan if I did as it was our last day and Tan was stressed about stuff. I think Venky went off to Vietnam or somewhere so we had loads of time to go for our flight but somehow it always seems that I am to blame for something.

But our entourage got us to Nanning in good time for our flight to Guangzhou, and we had the happy/sad matter of saying goodbye among photographs that will be treasured.

Tan, me, Lao Ma, A Ni, A Wu, Leilei, and A Ni's little sister

I guess the flight was fairly ok as we got to Guangzhou in one piece and took the shuttle bus to the hotel. Leilei had his last Chinese bath in the sink and looked happy enough doing so.

Probably the last ever sink-bath Leilei will have

Nanning Food and Drink

I woke up at the crack of midday. Apparently we had plans to eat lunch at some restaurant so I had to get ready and call Venky. As he hadn't got a Chinese SIM card we just went to his hotel and knocked on his door until he got up and opened it. A little while later and we were all ready to go to eat.

A Wu with Leilei and A Da in the morning at the hotel

We went to some nice-looking eatery that was rather central and ordered some nice stuff including plenty of vege options, which is not hard here. We didn't think we'd want beer but it being so weak and all it seemed like the default drink. And within half an hour we were a tad tipsy. I discovered that the camera I had bought in Japan a couple of years ago took nice sepia pictures, and Venky found out that the two AA batteries that ran his ran out after about 10 snaps.

Sepia photo of A Ni and A Wu

Venky and I got the chance to check out Nanning after that without the "protection" of our Chinese friends. It was quite welcoming and we happened upon some markets where they bade us smoke some tobacco. As a non-smoker I was nonplussed but in the interests of science I tried a bit.

Venky trying smoking from bamboo in Nanning - it's still smoking mate...

I think the rest of the afternoon was spent trying to get to the Vietnam embassy to get a visa for Venky. I remember jumping over parts of the road you shouldn't be jumping over in order to get a taxi to the embassy. It must have worked as we got there, then afterwards we found the closest place to grab a naughty beer and a bit of grub, and had our one and only drink/eat without our friendly Chinese chaperones. It was rather blissful.

The evening began with meeting some friends, one of whom had a cool, long, Audi that took some of us to Zhong Shan Lu (Middle Mountain Road), which is a famous street for street food and bbq. After a few minutes we found a place and sat down with the ladies and started ordering food. Except for Venky, who went on a mission to find...something.... Anyway Venky got back a bit later proudly showing the fruits of his labour as two tiny bottles of er gou tuo, i.e. the least drinkable substance known to western man.

He tried his best to get me to drink some over the next half an hour or so, reminding me of how we'd bought a bottle each in March 2003 when we first set foot upon China. We'd both brought a bottle of the undrinkable alcohol back to our rooms that night, together with a can of fizzy apple juice, as you do. And somehow we had both managed to finish the undrinkable stuff with the help of the said apple juice independently, as we found out the next morning. But, we promised each other, never again.

Me, A Wu, Venky, and friend in Zhong Shan Lu

Yeah well I wasn't married then so it was a bit different. I manfully took one small swig from one of the bottles and immediately regretted it and remembered our Beijing promise. Yuck. Even the locals wouldn't indulge with us except for the Audi driver who seemed to think he ought to do so.

Somehow, Venky managed more than a sip. And then another, and another. I took him to the loo a couple of times as he was downing the beer too. But on the third occasion he went by himself. A few minutes later he wasn't back, and as I knew no western (he pretty much is) man would be able to poo in such a public toilet I went looking for him with Audi man. Well we found him after 15 seconds, sitting outside the loo with a spray of corn-coloured vomit the radius of a small car around him. We sat with him for a few minutes but he was ok. Something told me this was not the first time (ok, it was experience). After a bit of cajoling we got him back, paid for the meal (at least someone did), and slowly got him back to the hotel as he would not get into any car.

Luckily the hotel was fairly central, and the walk seemed to have sobered him up. We made sure he got into his room ok and he gave A Wu a man-hug before leaving to sleep what I imagine will be his best ever sleep in Guangxi.

Venky giving A Wu a man-hug

I probably got told off when I got home late again....

Friends and Family and Venky in Nanning

We went down to Nanning to see Tan's eldest sister and a couple of relatives today. It was really nice to see Tan's eldest sister and she really got a lot out of seeing Leilei. The other two sisters were not really sisters at all, more like cousins, but I didn't have the heart to ask how far apart.

Tan's eldest sister, an aunt, Leilei, an uncle, Tan

Two of Tan's cousins, me, Tan, A Da, A Ni, Lao Ma

One of Tan's cousins in a slightly scary pose

We stayed for a nice evening meal. I noticed that, as in some other Chinese apartments, there was an expensive-looking bottle of XXXXX0 Cognac. I guess the more Xs the more expensive. The father may have glimpsed me looking at it as he brought the round bottle down and poured me himself a rather large glass. For some reason the colour was more dark red than dark yellow. That reason was wine. Chinese wine at that. He'd basically decanted a bottle of hongjiu into this bottle for some reason that I expect meant to impress. I only took the one glass.

Later I went with the girls to sing song. At least they sang song...I took a couple of mini-films, wishing my camera took longer and brighter ones....

She can actually sing quite nicely...and this is a nice song

It was worth going to karaoke as it woke me up a bit and I needed it as Venky was coming soon. At least that was the plan. We got to the airport but I received a text from him (to my English number annoyingly) that he was a tad delayed. It was annoying as I responded and probably used up a quid of my credit doing so. It wasn't such a big deal; we went to get a bite to eat somewhere and came back later. But we noticed his flight was delayed again and we didn't have a definite time. Eventually he texted me again to say he'd got halfway to Nanning before the pilot decided to turn back again for some technical reason.

Finally, gone midnight, he texted to say he was off again, and it was not long before 1am that we actually met up. But no speak of immediate sleep. The first thing was to find some food, which we managed easily at something like 1.30am. Here we had some delicious bbq fish and other vegetarian delights that A Wu and I also tucked into, together with the ubiquitous Li Quan. It was good to see Venky in Guangxi, just two and a bit years after the last time time in Beijing and Shanghai!

Uncle Lu took this picture of A Wu, Venky, and me tucking into bbq fish, squid, and sweetcorn...just what the doctor ordered for a 1.30am snack

Welcome to Guangxi Venky!

We dropped Venky off at his hotel at gone 3am and I got back to Tan's cousin's house even later much to her chagrin, but I explained we couldn't do much about aeroplane delays (though I'm not sure I mentioned the bbq and beer).

Bank, Fat Briefs, and Karaoke

Today we visited the bank where Tan used to work. Her cousin Lin Hong still works there and is quite high up I think. Anyway, Leilei stole the show and we were given huge grapefruit-like fruits to eat while he was taken by the workers.

Outside the bank

I got the chance to visit a local supermarket and guffawed at the "Fat Briefs" on sale. I suppose there must be a market for them.

Fat Briefs

And then I wandered around the town a bit until I happened upon some blokes playing what I suppose is draughts, but with a bit of a crowd watching them...

Draughts?

In the evening we were invited to a local karaoke place by Tan's friends. Although it was mostly women I managed to have a good time and do a bit of a singalong with Tan. I think I could get used to living here....

Huang Chun, Lao Ma, A Ni, Tan, me

Hydro-Electricity and Bumper Cars

Today A Wu, Jiefu, and some friends took me on a trip a few minutes outside Pingguo to see one of the main power stations, powered by water coming in from a dam. Apparently it powers a considerable percentage of Pingguo but I'm not sure what exactly that percentage is. On the way we had what I consider now to be a fairly typical experience of being stopped by people fixing the road. By people I mean women with shovels shovelling dirt around in an attempt to smooth out potholes or something similar I guess. We sat in the van for a couple of minutes before I realised no-one had any intention of doing anything other than waiting, so I decided to get out and help them. This spurred a couple of the blokes to get out and help to, not to mention a couple of photo-opportunities...

Mucking in to fix the road

Anyway, it was an interesting excursion, and I met the bloke looking after the station after we had woken him up. It does seem like the easiest job in the world, sitting in a reclining chair, watching over machines that are doing their stuff.

Me, A Wu, Uncle Lu, two mates, and Jiefu at the hydro-electric centre in Pingguo

The bloke who was looking after the machines (sorry to wake you)

Maybe it wasn't in keeping with the nature of the visit but I noticed some rather pretty flowers on the side of the road...

A rather pretty flower

Later, back in Pingguo itself we went to the guangchang to look at the fountains before they would be used. Jiefu, who I gather knows some government officials, took me underground to the control area of the fountains. I would have loved to play about with the jets of water and soak my friends above but it looked rather military and I dared not touch a thing.

At the fountain control centre with Jiefu

Totamly un-posed pick with a tiny A Wu

Back upstairs the men were getting restless and there was only one thing for it: bumper cars! We talked the owner into letting us have the complete area for a few minutes and enjoyed proper bumping (the likes of which are no longer allowed in the UK) for a good 10 minutes while darkness dropped around us like a shroud from Naples.

Uncle Yellow...it was pretty good fun

As it was dark now we went to the fountains to wait for the display. A number of school kids saw me and asked to take my photo with them. Weirdly, they also insisted that I take pics of them with me with my own camera. Oh well who knows maybe some day in the future one of them will recognise themselves here...

Some nice schoolkids at the guangchang

Me with Uncle Yellow and his woman Xiao Chong

Later in the evening we went to drink tea. This time it actually meant "drink tea" and I was very happy with the infusion!

The infusion pleased me

Snake!

This was to be our last day in Bangxu. Leilei didn't seem to mind and had a go posing on a motorbike.

We drove back to Pingguo in time for a special meal at A Wu's place. Special because A Wu's older brother was preparing snake for us blokes. This was a new experience for me and I got to see him cut the head off and syphon off the blood to be taken by us blokes later. But what surprised me was the bile duct. It was pierced by a toothpick until it eventually burst out a terribly dark green liquid that was mixed into a glass of alcohol. Apparently it, and the blood, are good for manly stuff, though Tan says I don't need to take anything ;)

Our friend the snake

A Wu and older brother with the snake

Bile on the left and blood on the right, as you do

Mmmm....snake blood...

For some reason after the meal we drank a few beers and I challenged A Wu to a game of arm wrestling. Given my longer, and slimmer, arms, this was a bit of a foolhardy challenge. But I gave a good account of myself, more so when moving to left-handed. I think he was a little surprised at how much I packed into it...maybe because of the snake's blood!

I'd love to say I beat him...

Lazy Day

Today was a lazy day...

But Leilei made some new friends...

And I saw some teeth for sale:

Scary cave

It was great to be with Leilei again. He certainly remembered us. And that was it. We were back in Bangxu, one of the most understated and subsequently most beautiful places you could hope to be in with your eight-month old son.

I was whipped away to join some blokes to go to visit a cave. Normally, this wouldn't sound so interesting and indeed it didn't to me. I was knackered and didn't really feel like going but I got on the bike and we drove no more than 20 minutes away. We arrived at a house and there were a few blokes. I thought I saw a few syringes just outside the house but ignored them; I wasn't here for medicinal reasons, nor medicinal drug reasons and I didn't want to find out what they were for.

After a few minutes of the blokes talking in the local tongue I sat down on a hard wooden chair and started to drop off. I didn't drop off though as I recall clearly listening to the blokes talking, and also I wouldn't admit it if I had.

Then, just as I was getting comfortable, we had to move. There were only six of us or so, and we beat an already somewhat beaten path to an entrance into the mountain. It wasn't the hardest trek in the world, but when you have no idea what is before you you do fear for the worst and wish you had several litres of water on you. Instead all they had were literally hundreds of joss sticks, so I gathered we were going to some dead person's place, as they are all over the mountains here (at least the bones are).

But oh no it was far more scary than that. We entered the mouth of a mountain and descended 30' or so before the leader turned on a torch and and pointed to a crack in the wall and said we'd go through that. Although my Mandarin is not that good I realised straight away that I was right as some slim bloke didn't flinch and somehow pushed himself through the base of the crack and disappeared. Then another one did the same thing. Then it was my turn.

I was overcome with a fear I've not known since being four years old and clinging to the dining table when told to go to school for the first time. It was even worse than being taken to my first (and only) piano lesson. But I realised I was an adult and had to face up to my claustrophobic fears (a tautology if ever there was one) so I moved up to the tiny opening and froze.

I had to go back a couple of feet and let the next bloke through and he did it as if it was climbing into the bed of a beautiful woman. And I thought about it. If Tan was watching (or Leilei), how much worse would I feel afterwards if I didn't go through? It was that thought alone that got me to close my eyes and push myself into the six foot long, 18" wide crack, only to be pulled through a couple of seconds later by the others. I'd made it...yahoooo!!! But as soon as I had I realised I'd probably have to do the same journey again to get back. Oh for a dirty G&T...

Getting through the tiny gap (that wasn't me)

But the effort was so worth it. In a few seconds we were transported to what was effectively another world. The floor was full of marble-sized brown balls, and there were stalagmites and stalactites every few feet. I realised that the most amazing thing about what I was seeing was that so few people had seen this before. Other than the normal gravity, and the temperature, and the pressure, and the lack of a space suit, I felt I was on Mars.

Me with Lao Lin...holding up the cave

The joss sticks were put into good use; one was placed every 10' or so so as not to lose the path back to the entrance. Of course my Mandarin became good enough to ask how long they stayed alight, to which the answer was "don't worry...".

This is what made it for me...the extra-terrestrial terra firma...would love to bring a westerner back here some time... 

A praying stalagmite? Well tites come down...

We found ourselves in a huge cave, which, according to what the torches afforded us, looked like the size of a football pitch, and tall enough to cater for a typical Man City free kick too. It was a quite dumbfounding half an hour that in some ways I wish never to repeat but I think will always hanker after. I seemed to have lost my fear about the tight tunnel coming back, and got dragged back in a similar fashion to getting in there. I actually would like to go back there again. It's the closest thing to being on another planet.

Turtle soup and Bangxu

Although we were due to go back to Bangxu to pick up our son, Lao Ma had invited us to lunch, on the roundabout quite near A Wu's house. Uncle Yellow and Xiao Chong came too. I can't remember exactly how it happened but somehow as the bowl containing the turtle was being served the whole porcelain bowl itself just split in the waitress's hands and fell to the floor just a foot from the table, causing a hot splash and some rather wet shoes, not to mention shame as we'd been waiting a long time.

I was concerned there would be anger but in fact everyone just burst out laughing - it clearly wasn't the waitress's fault, however we'd just lost our meal. Well not completely. Although it was the only turtle in the house, it was scooped up and I suppose washed, and served back to us a few minutes later. Of course there was some arguing and negotiating of the final price but it was in the local language so I didn't get any of it.

Re-serving the turtle soup - no-one risking sitting at the table this time

Yes, it's a turtle all right

Well the floored turtle was still rather delicious, and didn't last long, and finally we got a driver to take us to Bangxu to see Leilei.

The scenery on the way to Bangxu

Leaving Guilin

Well it was rather nice but I wasn't devastated to leave Guilin for Nanning. The road was clear and as we left early we got there in time for a late lunch. We went to a place called the "Haixian Shichang", which is simply "Seafood Market". But it was a bit more than just a market.

There were dozens of stalls with various tanks of living water creatures and the idea was not that you'd go there and buy your stuff to take home, but rather you'd take your stuff to one of the eight or so restaurants surrounding the area, which included the parking area. So we set about the choosing what we wanted and of course it took a little time as there was arguing with the stall holders about the quality and freshness of course.

When we finally made our purchases we had to find a restaurant and make a second purchase - this time the weight of the food to be cooked. I didn't notice them differentiating between crabs, fish and other stuff - it just seemed to be the combined weight so I guess they are all relatively the same in time and effort to cook.

Nicolas and Uncle Lu checking out what we may eat for lunch

Crabs are nice (to eat - that wasn't my hand)

The food was fantastic of course, as was the company

Bellies full, we got back in the van for the 90 minute journey back home to Pingguo.

But although we were home, Leilei wasn't as he was still with Waipo another hour or so away in Bangxu. So a third evening without him ensued, but Uncle Yellow's girlfriend, Xiao Chong, came around for an evening meal.

Xiao Chong and Uncle Yellow - a nice-looking couple (at least one half!)

2nd Night Without Leilei

Oh but it was a nice night's sleep - undisturbed for the second night in a row.

Today we toured around and within minutes I was fed up of being a tourist. It's great to be able to see an interesting cliff and to make a comment about what it looks like, a bit like a cloud, but to be told that around the corner is "elephant head cliff" or "sheep tail hole" somewhat dampens it for me. If we'd heard something like "peasant woman's breast beach" then maybe it would have been interesting but the most annoying thing was that people charged you 20 kuai just to get close enough to take a boring photo of the said cliff/hole/beach.

In some "Elephant cliff" place we did take a boat ride which was quite nice. I also quite enjoyed the walk over the hills even though you had to keep to the path. Nicolas also seemed to enjoy this place.

Lao Ma, A Ni, Nicolas, Tan, me and A Wu on a shaded boat somewhere near Elephant Cliff

At some stage we happened upon a secondary school with some interesting advice, possibly sponsored by Nike.

Just do it, but try five times - you will have pain but take it easy...

Yangshuo is not Guilin apparently, but we rode "Tan"dem

Yes it was nice, our first childless sleep for nearly nine months, and we did call Waipo early in the morning to speak to her and Leilei and she said there was no problem. She probably would have said the same if there had been, but she really wanted to be with him.

I thought we were in Guilin, and maybe we were, but this was not central Guilin anyway. There were quite a few foreigners around so I wasn't so special...at least I admit it. But we had something nice planned - we were going to go for a bike ride. This is something so typically Chinese but in fact outside of Shanghai I've never ridden a bike in China before, and even in Shanghai it was because the taxi driver refused to take Tan's bike sticking out of the back of the cab so I had to ride back in the middle of the night and get lost...

So at some time in the late morning we found ourselves at some bike place, and I was rather happily surprised to be confronted with a tandem bike, or should that be TanDom? (no!). That sounds romantic...Daisy Daisy give me your answer do...etc. but I'm sure Daisy at least helped pedal. It's not that easy to be aware that your partner is not pedalling as you have to look behind you while still steering and she nearly caused me to crash into a ditch but I found out Tan was not putting much effort into our ride along the river. Lao Ma had her own bike and I considered swapping Tan for her but baulked at the thought of a larger person not pulling her weight so carried on manfully, safe in the knowledge that my muscles would be the benefactors.

Tan...Tan...give me your answer do...oh no too late!

We reached somewhere in time for a meal - that is generally the case. And Tan and I had a photo opportunity to be the king and queen of...well something or somewhere.

King and Queen of Guilin

Later we did go to some touristy area and Tan bought a quite nice shawl/scarf thing. I saw a small hotel in the centre of town called "Fawlty Towers", which brought a small grin to my face.

Flowery Twats in Yangshuo

In the evening we went to a street with some bars in it where we saw more foreigners. We chose a bar with some music coming out of it but it sounded more like they were tuning up. In fact it was a single bloke with an acoustic guitar in full swing, singing western songs. Although his voice was pretty good the guitar was dreadfully out of tune. Really like some strings were a semitone flat and even the beer didn't make it better. It was all I could do to stop myself going up to him and helping him out and I am slightly regretful that I didn't.

We didn't stay too late as we wanted a relatively early start tomorrow, so home well before midnight and a call to Leilei and Waipo later and we were asleep.