Ed and I decided to crash a minority village with our awesome whiteness. We chose the biggest one, called Xijiang. Supposedly it is the largest Miao (pronounced meow) village with over 1,000 families. Well I couldn't say for sure that 1,000 families were living there, it was pretty and big.
Pretty much for two days we sat, enjoyed the scenery and listed to the locals sing. They have a very unique style of singing. High pitched and nasally. It is certainly different, but pretty in its own way.
While there, we actually ended up staying in some one's house. Basically, you go to these places and there are one or two families that rent out rooms (B&B style). In Xijiang, because it is like little Chinese Disney (more on that later), there are a lot of houses you can stay at. So pretty much, Ed and I hiked up an alley, and waited for the head of house (aka: Mom) to come out and mime sleeping to us. We'd go and look at the very basic room and move on to see what the next house had to offer. We ended up staying at this place that had built a patio overlooking the entire village. We thought we had gotten a deal at 50rmb a night, but it turned out to be 50rmb per person which meant it wasn't that much of a deal. But it still was pretty cool.
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| Rice Paddy hike |
Anyways, back to the Disney comment. Lonely Plant says that this place is really rustic, rural. You know, 'the last greatest minority village' kind of stuff. And it is. Except with golf cart mini-buses to drive you around the town (its not that big), two scheduled performances a day (where they make the locals come out and sing--but I'm sure they get paid), and the best part of all the 'Disney-esq' things to do there is this:
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| This years Christmas card early! Merry Christmas!! |
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| The weird pose the guy made us do |
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| Glamor Shot: Ed |
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| Glamor Shot: Jen |
And just in case you didn't believe us when we said people just take our pictures and that we are rock stars in Asia, here is just one example:
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