Getting to Know Wuzhishan - May 2017

Well as I said we would be back to the more mundane life of two old people in the hills of Wuzhishan. There are hundreds of pics on my computer but I shan’t bore you with them all, I’ll try and just give you a summary. What did we do in May? Well, mostly, walked, walked and then walked some more!

May 2^nd. (Approximately 2 hours). First we crossed the bridge to nowhere. We have a few of those here in Hainan. This one is a proposed bypass for Wuzhshan, stalled because there is a village in the way and so far, the villagers have not moved. Perhaps I should say they have neither been encouraged nor coerced yet! This picture shows the other side of the village where the road will eventually go. You can’t see it because this pic is facing the wrong way but there is another village in the way plus a small mountain!

Next up is Kongren village where the locals always wonder who these strange people are, the Chinese woman with the old sweaty foreigner, who are always walking around. No pics of that at this time, there probably will be in the future once I get used to blogging! After the village we reach one of my favourite parts, the country lanes, with no tarmac. These always bring back memories of my younger years in the UK, despite the flora, the fauna and the temperature being much different!

We walk all the way to the end of this lane before joining another one which takes us up to the village of Fuguan Cun. Then we are on to country roads for our journey back towards Panmoacun and then home. Just because they are real roads now doesn’t mean we don’t see and of God’s creatures. Most of them in Hainan don’t care for traffic very much so wander where they want. On this occasion it was only ducks and a dog.

May 4^th (2 ½ to 3 hours) One of our other walks takes us up north of the town, where we cross the river again and go up some small hills.

Once we reach the top, pass the village of Yingmai, then we have a nice long downward gradient, with lots of great scenery on each side.

We’re not really sure what this woman was doing but we think she was searching for river shells and / or crabs.

Long distance view of two villas which we certainly wouldn’t mind buying if we had a spare 300,000 pounds or so. (That’s just a guess.)

Next we come to the village of Baoba. We usually stop here for a refresher, Huan chats to the villagers, I try and engage the young children in English, more often than not unsuccessfully. They are too shy to try. Their little dogs aren’t shy though and I often get mobbed. On this occasion we only took pictures of the ubiquitous pigs. They are all over the place and invariably seem to be very heavily pregnant, so much so that their bellies almost drag on the floor. So far I haven’t been able to get near any of them. It must be the smell of apple sauce!

As well as pigs Hainan is covered with chickens. Very often they are very small and roan around the mountains. These guys looked a little larger Sometimes, seeing animals running free, I fleetingly consider being a vegetarian. The feeling soon passes though!

This is the lesser spotted, she who must be obeyed, on the final run in to the bridge where we cross back to the main road. You wouldn’t believe it to look at this picture but she really loves walking!

By the bridge we can see the apartment blocks where we didn’t buy one back in 2007. You can see pictures in the “Why Hainan” blog. Looking at them now I am yet again glad we didn’t buy there. Still all buildings in China seem to deteriorate, at least in appearance very quickly.

And here’s the boss again, with the river flowing into Wuzhishan behind here. More smiles this time. Luckily for me she also doesn’t mind being a ‘little tanned’!

Once back on the main road, the G224, we pass on the right hand side, this picture below. I can’t see this without thinking of a very old movie, ‘The Virgin Soldiers’ It was a 1969 film set in 1950, during the Malayan Emergency, and based on the novel by Leslie Thomas. I seem to remember that at one point in the movie the young national servicemen had to sneak back into barracks across such a pipeline, although it may have been bigger. Well worth a watch if you can find it!

Just a little further up the road we see another view of one of the two villas previously mentioned. Ah well, dream on . . .

We’ll leave it there for May 4^th otherwise you’ll be overloaded.

May 11^th (About 2 hours but it felt much longer!) We decided to take a walk we had done before, not a long one, so headed off from our house (1), across the bridge with no name, (2) and headed towards an apartment complex westward ho, (3).

When we reached there, we noticed a track down the side and after checking with the security guard that it came out the other side we decided to give it a go. It was beautiful, to start with.

We made the mistake of not crossing the small irrigation channel at the other side of the apartments and continued along the track we had found. It started fairly well.

Soon though, it began to get a little more difficult.

We managed to get to the top of the hill from where we could see one of the feeders into our river where they are constructing our eventual access to the central highway. At least we knew where we were!

We stumbled across this smallholding with signs of life, but no signs of people.

Further downhill we did find a lady working in the fields who told us which way to go. Why we listened to her I don’t know. We had to fight our way through these first

Once through we found we had at last, reached the river. (No 4 on the map)

That’s it we thought, our troubles are over. Of course we spoke too soon. There is a water plant between the irrigation channel and the river and no way for us to get across without swimming which is nor really recommended fully clothed and carrying phones! So it was back to the jungle once more.

Persevering upwards we got to the end of the irrigation channel and the beginning of its drainage pipes, (No 5 on the map)

Of course we couldn’t go down between the pipes, that would have taken us to the water plant and we would have been locked in! Yet again, it was back to the jungle!

Finally, scrambling down the bank, we were back on a real road, (No 6 on the map)

You wouldn’t think it from her picture but Huan was tired and thirsty. She loves fighting her way through the jungle though, she thinks it’s exciting because it’s a little dangerous. I must admit, I don’t really mind either, but we should have been better prepared as far as footwear went. Note my dirty shorts from scrambling down mountainsides. By the time we reached the apartment complex we were more than ready for drinks, along with the usual explanations of just why we were so crazy!

May 23^rd (About 2 hours) We thought we would try walking along the irrigation channel from the ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ to the west side apartment complex today. Started off well, the channel was full, the air was nice, the birds were singing.

We hadn’t gone far though before it became obvious that the irrigation channel may have continued through but there was no way we could.

The good thing about Wuzhishan is that, weather permitting, there is no shortage of places to walk. We decided to go the same way as we had on the May 2^nd. I first visited Asia in 1959, spending 2½ years in Singapore, lived in Hong Kong from 1970-73, visited the Philippines a number of times between 1991 and 2000 but I don’t think I ever realised just what banana plants looked like before I came to Hainan. I had seen them before but I never recollect seeing the ‘danglers’!

On our way down the country tracks towards Fuguancun we pass this building. It appears to be some kind of government place, could be agricultural I suppose. However, we have never seen anyone actually working there. I wonder if they would like me to look after it for them. Huan and could move in, rent free of course, for the duration of our lives. We wouldn’t mind!

Coming back along the main road into Wuzhishan we passed everybody’s favourite fruit. Have you tried it? I’m afraid once was enough for me!!

Almost home, here you see the “Holiday Inn’. Seems to be quite a regular story here in Wuzhishan.

Here is the gentleman who looks after the place. The owner doesn’t pay him, just allows him to live there rent free. His job I suppose is just to keep a presence on site and keep Joe Public out.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t keep all living creatures out. This is a big one!

Finally we see, welcoming us through the trees, home!

May 23^rd (About 2 hours) A solo walk this time. At times, I do like to go alone, for two reasons. I like to be alone with my thoughts and nature, and I can walk a lot faster by myself. A beautiful view of the river to start with.

Through an apartment complex, this one also includes villas and a hotel (on the right). Work has stopped on both the villas and the hotel, probably due to the fact that none of the owners of the apartments that you can see have received their ‘title books’ yet!

I took the road up towards the hotel and this is me after about 50 minutes!

Final destination after one hour. Very hot and sweaty!

Then it was off back down again, but via the scenic route and not down the road. It does provide a little more shade.

And finally, at the bottom, the ‘entrance’ to Wuzhishan Park.

May 26^th (About 3 hours) This is one of our regular destination, which usually takes us a little over two hours there and back. The village of Changhaochiang is about seven kilometres away, without any too demanding hills. Today though I had new boots!

We had previously decided to try walking part of the way along the river towards the village. We knew that it should be possible. So, we left the main road at Caobancun and once over the bridge, turned left.

Soon the concrete road gave way to dirt track. Good job I had my new boots!

The scenery as always, was lovely.

Because of the farmland, which was very boggy, we had to take a very meandering course around. Luckily for us, the weather was just right for walking, not too hot, and there was plenty for us to see.

All too soon we were stooped down fighting our way through the undergrowth again.

Then again, who minds, when you come out of it to something like this.

We had quite a few more wide detours as we progressed. We came upon some water buffalo at one stage. It was too boggy for me to approach them but I got the feeling they may not have run away as easily as normal cows do here.

Eventually we passed some habitation, here’s Huan, still smiling, and away in the distance, between the trees, we could see our destination.

We have no idea what this was, very nice from outside, but bereft of any beauty inside.

As we approached the village we saw the obligatory piggies, still very nervous of people and then a sight we see quite a lot of here, ducks in fields. They also run away like mad although on one occasion we did see a farmer calling them and they were reacting to him.

May 27^th I had a solo walk around the river in the town and May 28^th we both did the mountain hotel walk again. Any pictures from those walks would merely be repetition though.

May 30^th (Approximately 2 hours) We walked along the roads to Fuguancun and then a little further on took a detour through the woods and the hills. We passed an old medicine factory, there’s quite a few of them here too. And headed for the new highway construction to take us back home.

Because they are constructing a lot of bridges we have to keep going down to get round. Neither of us is strong enough, or lithe enough, to jump the huge gaps between the supports! The good thing on this trek, is that going down always takes us to the river.

Then of course, we have to go back up again.

This is as far as we can go at the moment so it’s take the turning on the right back to the Changhaoxiang road.

The last sights before arriving home were what I earlier called ‘normal’ cows. Here’s one looking very warily at me and two more sheltering, as much as they could, under a roadside tree. I left them completely alone this time.

And that’s it for May. It seems like a long post I know but I promise that when we are up to date I will keep them shorter.