Voices from within

China, Day 2 – Hongcun

[Click me for Day 1's post]

We had originally planned to stop by Hangzhou to visit Xihu (西湖) before proceeding to Huangshan. However, we cancelled the plan and decided to head to Hongcun (红村) instead. And, I was glad we did. Hongcun is such an unspoiled habitation, where one can still find old architecture and beautiful landscape, similar to those you often see in traditional Chinese TV series or paintings. The people, for one, are very different from those we find in Shanghai on Day 1. The Hongcun villagers are very friendly. You can easily strike a conversation with them. Just tell them that the village is such a beauty, or ask them how did this area get its name, and they can chat with you for hours!

Date: 10-Aug-2010

We had earlier purchased the tickets when we arrived at Shanghai the day before. The bus fare from Shanghai South Long-Distance Bus Station to Yixian was RMB151. We began our journey to Yixian (黟县) at 7:28AM. It was a long, long journey. I could not recall how many times did we fall asleep and wake up along the way. There was nothing much to see during the first few hours of the journey as we were on the highway. We could see sights of old houses and villages, paddy fields, and rivers when we were less than 10KM from Huangshan City (黄山市).

We finally arrived at Yixian Bus Station at approximately 2PM. Our stomachs were already growling and there was only one eatery at the station. It was a pretty rundown shop but the food was delicious! We had a simple, kampung-styled lunch :-)
As soon as we were done with lunch, we rushed to the ticket counters and inquired for the bus to Hongcun. The bus ticket to Hongcun costed RMB2 each only (the mentioned bus is the blue van below)!

We arrived at Hongcun's entrance 20 minutes later. We paid RMB80 each for the entry to Hongcun. We were advised by the entrance guards to make a call to our Hostel's owner so that they could come and pick us up. I understood why later.. the whole village was like a maze. Every path and house looked the same to us.

Our Hostel's owner was a very kind and friendly lady. She briefly described how we would easily find our way back, introduced us to where we should get the best tea leaf, and happily upgraded our room from the original room, which we had earlier reserved at RMB180 to a RMB200 room, without extra cost. The photos on the bottom right are sections in the hostel. Ju Shan Tang (居善堂) is a highly recommended accommodation at Hongcun! Check out their website to find out more. After all, we were first attracted to the hostel by its website and we never looked into other hostels anymore!

These pictures were taken at the Moon Pond (月沼), an intriguing place for photography, which one cannot get enough of. The Moon Pond was also one of the shooting location in Ang Lee's Oscar-winning film, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

The photos below were taken from various well-preserved houses around the village. We spotted several tour guides with their traveller groups and we chipped in to listen as well. Each part of the houses bear significant meaning. There were beautiful carvings on the pillars and certain sections in the houses had its purposes. We found a house which had two very small rooms in the front court, one on the left and the other on the right. The room on the right had a movable shutter with holes in it. From our observation, each room could only house at most 3 person, without any space left to move around. Both rooms were facing each other and were about 4-5 metres apart. Later, we found out that they were entertainment rooms! The house owner would sit in the room on the left and he would then invite entertainers to sit in the room on the right, with the movable shutter closed. Now, when the entertainers begin playing their musical instruments, it would create high fidelity sound with minimal noise. Oh boy, the people in the olden days sure knows the meaning of enjoyment.

After that, we decided to call it a day and returned to our hostel. On our way back, we stopped by the tea seller's house which the hostel's owner had earlier recommended. Little did we know that a short visit to simply purchase some tea leaves for our moms turned out to be an hour long stay. The tea leaves seller and his wife were too friendly :D They served two different types of tea, mao feng (毛峰) and hou kui (猴魁), for our tasting pleasure. According to the seller, both were hand-plucked from Huangshan. Check out the two glasses of tea in the picture below. The glass on the left is hou kui and the other is mao feng. Can you guess which is the more expensive tea leaves from the look of it? Our visit to the tea house was indeed very beneficial. We learned how Hongcun got its name and how Yixian had its name, Hei Duo Xian (黑多县 - the first two Chinese characters were later combined to form the word, Yi) changed to Yixian (黟县).

After the tea session, we returned to our hostel for dinner. This meal was earlier suggested by our hostel's owner. She cooks fine local dishes :-) We were served with her best dish, a pot of steamed chicken and two other side dishes. The dinner costed RMB70. We went to bed early for the night in order to preserve energy for the hiking journey the next day.

Stay tuned for Day 3's post about our journey to Huangshan!

[Click me for Day 3 & 4's post]