Invisible Tourist Spots & A Wet Week.

June 28^th Huan starts us off this week with a bug in the living room. How it got in there we don’t know, it’s too big to have come in through the flyscreen. Maybe it crawled under the front door or even worse, hitched a lift with one of us!

Today’s plan involved no walking, at least not until after dinner. I had decided we would go for a drive and look for the Atuo Hill Viewing Platform. This sign is the second one, nearly a kilometre after the first one that also shows a distance of 2km.

We failed, miserably, the ‘viewing platform’ does not seem to exist. No worries, let us carry on and see if we can find Yá hú niú guó (Yahu Bull Kingdom), another twenty odd kilometres down the road. On the way we spotted a this, 五指山露营谷 (Wǔzhǐshān lùyíng gǔ), Wuzhishan Camping Valley so popped in for a looksee.

Inside was pretty enough but looked a little run down.

The camping part, despite the tent at the gate, turned out to be caravans.

Huan found another human being so set off to find out more. I just thought the whole place was dead. It seems not, it belongs to someone rich who sometimes comes with his friends. They either bring their own food with them or order from a food delivery company. Back up the road towards the gate and the car park we went.

Once back at the top we read the notices in the window. Top, 未营业 (Wèi yíngyè) Not Open, Bottom Left, 毒蛇出没, 非请勿入 (Dúshé chūmò fēi qǐng wù rù) Viper infested, Do Not Enter, Bottom Right, 如有伤害, 后果自负 (Rú yǒu shānghài hòuguǒ zìfù) In Case Of Injury, At Your Own Risk. It seems that they really don’t want people to visit; maybe we should have read these notices first. Ah well, at least we got some photos.

Our journey continued with a couple of U-turns on the way. The signposts for Yahu Bull Kingdom kept disappearing although the signs for the rice terraces were still there. Our assumption, based on the signs was that the two are somehow linked so we set off towards the rice terraces. For some reason, the road rang no bells with us at all despite going there before.

Soon we were there and Huan sneaked out of the car after me to take some snaps of me. Two were of my back and side taking photos; this was the third one, the one I kept.

And this is the panorama stitched from the photos that I had taken.

Finally, as we were driving out of the terraces I had to stop and take this picture. We both thought it was an amazing view, what say you?

So we failed in all our endeavours this morning. Not only that, we failed in our after dinner plan too, the heavens opened up! C’est la vie.

June 29^th Changhao road was the good lady’s choice for today’s walk, I didn’t disagree. Luck was on our side, there was no fleet of trucks hauling sand between two places. The road is definitely being worked on though, widening in progress, you can see by the fishponds that are no longer being used as such.

After the highway off ramp we came across this site where construction appears to have completely stopped. One of Huan’s acquaintances was trying to get us to invest our money here, it is called 五指山永泰康养中心 (Wǔzhǐshān yǒngtài kāng yǎng zhōngxīn) Wuzhishan Yongtai Rehabilitation Center. Luckily for us, we had no money to invest!

Turning off at our first village Huan wandered off while I chatted up the local mongrels. She had found a guy doing something with a loud machine and wheat grain.

A little further on the local rubber market was almost busy.

As you know this is one of our favourite walks, shaded by trees for a lot of the way, and passes through a few small villages. The second was Fanyu 1 Cun and the third was Caoban. That one even has English on its signposts.

As usual we kept to the countryside of the river away from the main road.

Some days we can cross the river here, today it appeared to be not so easy.

That meant taking the longer route through the wilderness; However, the road has been extended now so the going was easier. The downside was that the tree cover had disappeared!

To avoid a large circle we decided to cut across the field you can see above. The construction foreman was not impressed; he said we would get bogged down in the wet bits. He obviously didn’t know who we were and we proudly got across with dry feet.

Huan went off being a nosey parker again and came back with this photo of a weaver.

We deviated from our usual course, not by much, but it did make for a sunnier route. That was quite possibly a mistake today, it was a warm day.

We headed off to the village in the distance, both of us needing some water topping up. The bottles were not inspected closely enough and they turned out to be some kind of cheap energy drinks. I was desperate and drank all of mine, Huan only drank half. Ah well, that’s another lesson learned. There was canine consolation though!

What a welcome sight this sign was, almost ten kilometres done today. We must have snaked around the lanes a bit more than usual. They had water, and a bus stop too.

Even Huan must have been feeling it today; she decided that we wouldn’t wait for the bus when she saw one of Wuzhishan’s new ‘micro buses’ passing by. I’m not sure why they call them that, they are in fact shared taxis that you can flag down or call with an app.

The slogan on the side says “Reaching all villages” and it certainly did well for getting us home. I should amend that to say, I was fine but Huan had become sick. She does occasionally get travel sick but not usually on such a short journey. Perhaps the last part of today’s walk was a bit much for her today and a little heat exhaustion may have overtaken her. She seems fine this evening after an afternoon sleep and some rice soup.

June 30^th After Huan’s little setback yesterday today’s plan only involved a slow stroll around the riverside. We passed over “Little Island” on the way and spotted a single saxophone player. He is actually very good and played “Speak Softly Love” (The Godfather) and “Floral Dance” while we were watching and listening. Why is he alone? I would hazard a guess that it is political drama within the various groups of players where we live.

Huan was still quick enough to spot lizards today!

Our last photo of the day, yes not many today, is a chicken under a hedge. Actually I took a few of these chickens under the hedge but none of them really came out well. There was too much distraction for the camera to focus well. However, when I saw this one after uploading it then I decided that you should see it too. Can you see why? P.S. It’s not what you think.

July 1st “The Lift-Your-Spirits Quote Book” compiled by Allen Klein, ISBN 0-517-16309-8, published in 2001. This month’s quote comes from the chapter “Heart”. In the rush of daily living it’s easy to forget all the remarkable people, real or fictional, who have been a part of your life. But if you just imagine they are near for a moment, you will realise that anyone who ever touched your heart is always with you, patiently waiting to emanate warmth and support whenever you remember to think of them. (Barbara Sher) Bob’s PS – Many people have touched my heart over the years, I thank them all and wish them all happiness and joy! May they all be as blessed as I have been and feel as content as I do.

Rain stopped play today; at least it did For Huan. I chose to risk it after lunch and started off well, just a little rain which my umbrella and the trees were excellent protection against. However, while I was out conditions changed, luckily I had left Freddy Fuji at home. With the paranoid android I decided just to make a few collages to show you the weather. We start off at the beginning with clouds all round but pleasant enough walking weather.

The irrigation canal was quite full whereas ‘Tea Street’ was quite empty. There were a few diehards present for their usual games of cards but not so many.

One thing we have to be wary of when the rain gets stronger is falling over! The pavements and paths become very slippery. Mind you, with not so much traffic I just walk on the roads.

By now, although you can’t see it so much in the photos, the rain was fairly bucketing down and I was no longer being helped much by my brolly and the trees. The last photo in this quartet reminds me very much of my time in Hong Kong when we walked everywhere in torrential rain with shorts, shirts and flip flops. In those days I had a great bamboo umbrella and it worked far more efficiently than these folding ones we have nowadays.

Arriving home Huan had to get another snap of me, I think she was a little disappointed that I wasn’t wetter. The photo doesn’t show the worst; basically it’s only my shoulders that were dry.

Needless to say, there were no more jolly jaunts today!

July 2^nd Rain stopped play again today, this was outside after breakfast.

And this was after lunch, almost the same; the mountains are a little more visible.

And after dinner which looks so much better. Don’t let the photo deceive you though, it still rained too much for us to go out.

What happened to our ‘no cooking’ Saturday then? We cheated a little and used instant noodles, what vegetables we had in the fridge and a tin of stewed belly pork. It worked!

July 3^rd Rain didn’t stop play today but the overcast skies put the kybosh on any long walks in the country. We stuck to the town and the riverside.

Yesterday I had watched a video of fallen trees near the town square so we walked that way to check out the damage. To my surprise, the now heavily pruned tree had been returned to it’s vertical plane and replanted in the hole it fell from.

Next up I did something that I would criticise other people and children doing and climbed up a public attraction. The photos that Huan took of me there were pretty abysmal, no sign of a smile anywhere, so I put them all together.

There was not much chance of anyone saying anything about my hooliganism, we appeared to two of the very few souls out this afternoon.

These little electric cars always seem to have something on their sides, I wonder how they go about registering them or if the police just accept them as they are.

At least that car didn’t have ‘Hello Kitty’ on it. This photo does though! I noticed that the cage had appeared outside the animal clinic again so dragged Huan across for a look. Inside were three rather nervous little kittens, who of course were not allowed to go home with us.

July 4^th For this day I will say “Happy Anniversary” to one of my friends, named Steve. No, he didn’t get married on this day; he got married on the 5^th so he celebrates his last day of independence every year on the 4^th. Don’t worry my dear American friends, I do of course also wish you all a Happy Independence Day. P.S. If you want to come home again I promise to put in a good word for you! 😁😁😎

Monday means shopping so that was our first job of the day, via the fuel station. For the first time since we’ve been here in Hainan we had to pay over ¥500.00 to fill up. The price has broken the ¥10.00 per litre mark, it was ¥10.18 today. Mind you that is still way below UK prices so I guess we shouldn’t complain too much.

After dinner, unusually for a Monday, we went walkies. Huan decided that because we had been rained off more than once we needed to get out again so I dutifully agreed. Instead of the riverside we headed through LuoBoTe village where we spotted one of the young boys having a word with the cows. They wanted nothing to do with me, they had their eyes on the bag of green foodstuff at the young fellow’s feet.

I had previously told Huan about where I had taken a wrong turn the last time I came this way so she insisted we should take that turn again but this time go all the way down to the river.

On the way down we spotted a tree full of chickens. Well, it wasn’t really full of them but there were a few and we did get a shot or two.

As per the expeditionary force leader we had to proceed to the river. I guess it was worth it for the view, just don’t look too carefully at the highway bridge.

Having walked down to the riverside we had to then walk back up again. I made sure I grumbled a lot on the way up!

On our way we met a pig on the path but couldn’t get near enough to take a photo. It ended up running into the woods and then stopping to have a look at me.

The next photo has a face that you could say looks a little cuter than the pig’s. We’re not sure how old this pup was, the lady whose house it was near said it was a recent arrival. It was still mewing rather than making any other noises. When we had put it down and left it followed us but we didn’t know. Huan realised after a couple of hundred metres so I had to pick it up again and carry it home. Unfortunately, I mean his home and not ours…

And so we come to the end of another week, a very wet one at that. Checking the weather forecast this next week looks a lot better, rain should come back on the 11^th, fingers crossed. I know that many of you have much more to worry about than the weather, all can say is take care of yourselves and your loved ones. We’ll be back in a week, see you then.