Post # 75 Binyang

Day 88 992 days to go. Distance: today 84km total # . It’s 8.30pm Sunday 26/2/2012 Binyang. It’s a very exciting time for our family back home with my cousin having her first baby Wednesday this week. All my love and positive vibes are coming your way Ruthy and Ben with the arrival of Mini. You’re very brave and clever the three of you. Today’s been full on hard cycling with hills, headwind and serious cold but really satisfying. It was a great feeling arriving this evening 6.30pm Binyang safe and sound and scolded from the hottest shower ever. I found a hotel for 50 yen so about $8 Aussie and all is good now posting you fine folk. I’m so loving the challenge of China. The days full of elements like the countryside, people, language challenges, cycling, winter chills, cultural differences I love the variation it’s really stimulating. I started the day skyping with the folks and that was such a lift connecting again with the people I love. Last night I
skyped with my partner and have received lots of emails from buddies. So I’m all topped up with warm and fuzzies. This makes such a huge difference with staying on top the heightened isolation and takes my awe of the internet to a new level. As I mentioned in the last post China has an internet block on wordpress. After some chats with the family it looks like I’ll be able to email the posts to my sister who is prepared to update the blog and attach a photo to best capture the day. Thank you Janny this counts big. the thought of not being able to post my experiences to you caused me a bit of anx and again made me appreciate even more the significance of staying connected through the post. It remains my treasured gift to post you about my experiences so thank you so much for staying tuned in. After sorting this and other logistics this morning it was a later start about 1pm. The woman at the hostel was very pateient and helpful showing me the route out
of Nanning to highway 322. The directions were totally successful. Rube and I let out the biggest cheer seeing the highway sign for Binyang. A handful of lads hanging out on their mopeds by the roadside looked over to see what the commotion was about and I gave them a big cheer and thumbs up too. What the hey they already think I’m alien 🙂 Once out of the city sprawl the rural is all agriculture. Terraced farming of sugar cane, rice of course, corn and mixed greens. They are such hard workers the farmers. Woman and men alike commute to the farms on bikes, mopeds, by foot, tuk tuk taxis. Whatever gets them to their working day. There’s allot of smoke haze as they burn their sugar cane but I like the smell of it. It reminds me of Bundaberg where my Pops is from and where we’d travel to as kids for holidays to see Gran and Papa. The urban and rural homes are all a basic rectangular shape built from brick. The more flash ones have a tiled front facade but
most are just red brick. Most homes have red drapes around the front entrance with black or gold chinese writing. There is such a clear class differnce in the vehicles on the road that vary from the latest and greatest to rickety old trucks and cars rustic and very vintage. They look so authentic in the farm yards although I’m sure their owners would prefer something less than 50 years old that didn’t choke black smoke and chug along slower than me and Rube. There are still heaps of tractors and carts on the road and a handful of water buffalo used to commute and pull loads of everything from rubbish to scrap metal to sugar cane to live stock to families. I still see live animals being transported to market. I appreciate more now that they don’t have the refrigerated transport options we have at home so alive means fresh. It still kicks me in the guts to see them packed like meat while alive but I’m distancing myself from the issue for a bit of
emotional preservation. I’m seeing the best dressed scarecrows in the fields my favorite even had a hard hat on and was holding a plough. Very clever!!!! . They love their cards and board games here. Its usual to see mostly men but the odd woman right into their board game and even bystanders betting on the winner. Food venders are everywhere in the towns selling food mostly. Kebabs and fried pancakes are popular and always smell so great. There were stalls of chinese medicine in nanning that included dried animal parts including bird feet that looked prehistoric. Rube and I planned to nstop a bit earlier at a town I thought would have accommodation at the 65km mark. It did but not for tourists and this was my first experience of not being welcomed to stay somewhere. I had read this can be the case particular for budget guesthouses so no surprises but it’s still a bit weird them being told no with a shaking hand gesture. My reaction was ‘really!!!’
But we recollected and finsihed off the last 25 kms after putting another layer on (4 in total), gloves and beanie. Considering we were peddling up hills I was still feeling the cold so goes to show it’s a wee chilly in China this time of year 🙂 Like I said all good and cosey toes now. Time for dinner and bed. Nice post. Talk soon x