Aaah, a shortie! Up early for breakfast and to walk through the glorious crisp morning mountain air before descending again to warmer climes. Van to airport and to check-in counter. I am annoyed and angered to see that there’s a flight out to our destination about 3 hours later – which would have obviated our 5 hour layover! I talk with Daisy about it, and she says she understands, that it was probably the booking office who thought it would be better for us all to fly out together, instead of me being able to sleep in and enjoy the view for a while. I forgot in the moment to remind her I asked HER two days earlier if there was a later flight and she replied in the negative. Oh well.
Flight up and down (only an hour) and Lance and I spend the time chatting with a delightful Australian 18 year-old who is traveling with his mates for a month seeing the Middle Kingdom – and of course, we teach him to play cribbage! After de-planing, we say goodbye to the rest of the group and go to pick up my checked back (international carry-on standards are way stricter) and hang in a tea room (with wi-fi) until they let us check in. Lucky Airlines? Seems a bit scary to me!
Check in, security lines, and plop in a little restaurant (again wi-fi) and have a bite to eat and I catch the blog up. Yea Stacey! You certainly caught up and gave me a great laugh with all of your comments. I really appreciate comments from any and all of my readers to let me know you’re (kind of) occasionally hangin’ with me.
As we prepare for takeoff, Lance points out that about a mile away stand so many high-rises being built and approximately 70 cranes! It’s impossible to over-emphasize the amount of building going on here. And most of it “for the future”….hopefully it will come. Another one hour flight and we’re greeted by our new Wild China Guide, Duon. Off to the hotel to begin a string of one-night stands (no, not that kind) through the Guizhou countryside. We’re at the Karst hotel and relieved to have more independence and control (!!) over what we do and don’t do, where we eat and don’t eat. A quiet evening and we’ll be rested for what’s ahead.
Duon returns after about an hour and takes us around the corner to a restaurant specializing in Dong food – the Dong being a minority living out in the mountains. We’re a bit worried because we seem to the the only people in the place, which Duon explains away with the rationale that it’s really mostly visited by groups or big family celebrations. Hmmmm….He orders a few dishes, and Lance and I might agree this is the least favorite of all of our meals. We thought the eggplant stuffed with minced pork and peppers looked awesome on the full color menu, but there is an herb in it that taste incredibly gross. Definitely some screwed up faces on that one! Also, the selection with the little mini shrimp, which you eat with the shell on, does not go down well. So I’m pretty much eating the mashy potato, which is exactly what it sounds like, filled with minced veggies and some bits of ham. But not to worry – the night market is right across the street!
We chat about tomorrow’s schedule, make a slight adjustment to avoid the second Miao (pronounced: meow) village, where we are supposed to visit a family that embroiders. Sounds familiar? He informs us, sadly, that these days they give tours and show the looms, but sell mostly factory-made items. So we head down to the night market, and tell Duon he can head home to his family for the last night before he hits the road with us, and we wander by the neon stands, seeing a few new items. Finally, we come upon a noodle stand run by 5 women, and I say I’d happily eat there. We walk a bit more and come upon women making pork dumplings right in front of our eyes:
(will post a video after return: first girl cuts a hunk of dough off of a football-size ball, then rolls into a long roll and efficiently cuts into small, equal-sized shapes, then next girl rolls into a circle and tosses to sitting older woman who uses two chopsticks to pinch off just the right amount of meat mixture and make a little hat. rinse. repeat.), so we quickly finish surveying the row, then come back to place our order. That was a pretty funny process. No one but us speaks english (and in fact we haven’t seen a western face all evening). Lance tries pointing to a man eating soup and using fingers and we all laugh and finally they figure it out.
We sit at a table waiting for our order, and sample all the spices and funky shit in bowls and bottles on the table to see what we might use for dip. By the time our dumplings arrive, we have witnessed a young man putting every single thing into a little bowl to make a dipping sauce, and so we follow suit. Mmmmmm….goes to the top ten. The wonderfully tender dough, steamy and plain contrasts perfectly with the tender, slightly fatty scallion-ginger-pork mixture inside. We enjoy quite a few, and then we’re thanking the crew, purchasing our usual supply of bananas from the fruit lady, and back to the hotel. Goodnight!