Life is a Spilitual Jouney: With A Moustache & New Teeth

October 17^th We woke up to another muggy day, it looked certain that rain would come along and spoil any plans we had. (We hadn’t made any.)

No problem, more ‘Chuck’, also watched all of ‘The Spying Game’, the three episodes are all available on Youtube. As it was my turn to cook today I also spent some time in the kitchen making sure our duck leg stew was ready for this evening.

After lunch someone was beginning to get a little stir crazy. It wasn’t me, I just played at the Fonz and ‘cooled’. Huan though was worried that we, (for we read me), hadn’t walked since Sunday so out we went. “Look at that white bird” was the cry, here is the (too far) picture.

Huan tried her hardest to find lizards, squirrels or any other creature to keep me busy. She had just about given up when she found a green friend.

Arriving home and looking out of the bedroom window we realised that we were just in time. In fact the rain turned up not long after we had finished our dinner.

And of course we mustn’t forget, because the Minister of Food said so, to take a snap of said dinner. Here it is, our duck leg stew. No recipes are needed for stew, just throw it all in! I used Chinese long beans and for a change I didn’t cut them, I thought Huan would be amused. Her plate looked prettier with a nice circle of beans before the photo was taken.

October 18^th More binge watching, I got bored with the last season of ‘Chuck’ so went through ‘Code 404’ instead, an English comedy police series from 2020. It only ran for three seasons, each season six episodes and each episode less than half an hour. It wasn’t bad at all. Why was I binge watching, well rain stopped play today.

October 19^th The weather woke us up with rain again.

Just like yesterday we both watched a load of rubbish. I started watching ‘The Hitmen’, another UK TV series. It had promise but it wasn’t really for me. Instead I found a better one; well I think so anyway, another English one, ‘The Cleaner’. I did take a break from my binging though to get tonight’s dinner ready.

After lunch we took the risk and headed for a walk and some admin. This time it was financial admin for both of us. My bank was the first stop where we found good news, for a change. They are now able to bring my book up to date and even more importantly issue me a new one. Once that was done we asked the most important question, can they now change pounds into Renminbi, something they couldn’t do when they first opened. The answer is yes so that should save us a lot of faffing around in the future.

From there we decided that as the rain appeared to have worn itself out while we were busy in the bank we would go on the lizard walk until we got to the first of the Minister of Finance’s banks. With a shortage of photos I thought you needed this, once home Huan did the necessary. From the left - 1) 节约用水, Jiéyuē yòngshuǐ - conserve water. 2) 造福人类, zàofú rénlèi - benefit mankind. 3) 功在当代, gōng zài dāngdài - merit in contemporary times. 4) 利在千秋, lì zài qiānqiū - profit in the future. I think a better translation for #3 would be ‘benefit now’.

We were not walking together at this point, Huan was on the lower path and I was on the road. She did her usual and managed to find a lizard so here it is, from below and from above.

Once Huan’s bank visits were completed we headed back towards home thinking that we would get no more photos at all today. I kept my eyes open for any little creatures as we walked along the final stretch and lo and behold, some wee beasties.

Not to be outdone Huan then found a bigger one, one that she said was horrible before adding that she wondered if it would turn into a moth before too long.

All that remained for me to do when we got home was to heat up our dinner. I teased Huan that far too many chickens had died to feed us today, our dinner was chicken hearts. This is something that is mostly wasted in the UK but definitely not in Asia. I actually really like them. Ours were cooked with garlic, (of course), onion, red pepper, celery and Bob’s special tomato paste, then served with rice. My only complaint was that I could have eaten more!

October 20^th So we were up nice and early this morning, early enough for a long walk in the country, or so I thought. After spending what seemed to be nearly an hour trying to sort Huan’s phone out, and then looking at the sky, we decided a town and river walk would have to do.

Passing the trees by the riverside Huan was convinced she heard a squirrel so we had to stop and investigate. It wasn’t a squirrel at all; it was a bird, which is what I had said. It was extremely difficult to photograph because it can’t have been much bigger than my thumb.

Not too long after we found another one, not in a tree.

Earlier in life I once worked for a Japanese company and true to stereotype we used to receive faxes from Japan, in English, with the letters ‘r’ and ‘l’ mixed up. Stereotypes can sometimes be true. I’m not sure where this fits in though, the ‘r’ in the first word has been replaced by an ‘l’ but the ‘r’ in the second word has been omitted. And why is there a moustache?

Our streams are bringing quite a lot of water down to the river due to the recent rains.

Nearing the end of the river, or at least the bridge where we usually turn around and head for home, Huan had me stopping at four different trees. You have seen this wee beastie in the past but here it is again. The third one has popped its clogs and is being carried off by the local ant undertakers. Whether they killed it first or not I cannot say. They are all “Phauda flammans”. If you translate the Latin into Chinese you get 火焰牛, Huǒyàn niú which then translated back into English gives you ‘Flame Ox’. Google may be terribly wrong but I like it!

We walked back down on the riverbank on the other side and to Huan’s surprise we found a lizard out there in the open on the path. I did try to get near enough for a high five but he leapt off into the bushes.

Also down by the river Huan found a tree with tiny fruit growing on it. They will not remain tiny of course; I think they may be papaya.

And that was the end of our day, well apart from buying some tatties for the weekend salad. Arriving home a little later than usual we managed to avoid the afternoon nap although both of our eyelids were having problems. A bit of practice testing helped Huan and some more episodes of The Cleaner helped me.

October 21^st Another Saturday means another market day but the nearer we got the less it seemed like the market would be there.

Huan overheard someone saying that the market had moved to the other side of the river, close to where the other inside market was. We took this nice view of mountains and rooftops as we were crossing the bridge.

What Huan had heard was right, but the layout of the ‘new’ location was horrendous. Finding what we were looking for, or even just walking around, was not very easy at all.

Having failed in our quest we headed back across the river.

As we usually do on market days we still headed off towards Lizard Market where we knew we could find the salad stuff for the weekend dinners. On the way we passed someone we knew who told us that the market would probably not be back in its old home for another three months. The road will be dug up for new water and electric infrastructure. One of the good things here is that when they do decide to improve things there are no huge cost overruns or lengthy delays.

Reaching the market we found one of our friends, he wouldn’t shake hands though.

All our vegetable needs were sorted out for our dinners but we still didn’t have the crispy pork belly. That was one of the market stalls we were unable to find and they are not present in the underground market in the mornings.

As we were arriving home Huan had a phone call from the dentist, my ‘new’ teeth had arrived, or should I say my new bridge had arrived. That meant that after lunch we had to go out again. Before we got to the dentist I was told to “Look! It’s a big one!”

I was using my phone but the image is not too bad, I think you’ll agree. Huan of course had her phone ready for the dentist’s chair. If you look very closely you can see that the dentist has my new bridge in his right hand ready to be inserted.

From there we went straight to the market where we found our pork lady. She had not been to the other market today but she did have a stall full here. With dinner all sorted out we could go home and get today’s on the table. All’s well that ends well.

October 22^nd This morning was a quiet one, no walks, partly because the computer said it would rain all day but mostly because I woke up late! We took the risk after lunch though when we saw the tops of the mountains becoming visible. Yes, even in the second picture, we could see the clouds moving higher as we watched.

Our route changed within minutes of leaving the house, I was carrying the rubbish and someone had hidden all the bins. I ended up carrying it a kilometre and a half before Huan sneaked it into a village bin. We carried on through the valley, Huan on the path and me on the ditch wall.

Huan would say that we were lucky to change our route; if we hadn’t done we may not have seen the snake! It was quite a long one, perhaps two metres, but very thin. We both took videos of it, me trying to make sure that neither of us got too close. I’m fairly sure it was looking at me! The video is here: - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuELnKp2IYg&ab_channel=HainanBob

Soon Huan was back on familiar territory finding me a lizard.

That was the best photograph I could get because as I was trying my best to sneak up close, a couple of lads turned up and within seconds one of them had the poor little lizard in his hand.

I was terrified that he was about to start pulling out the lizard’s claws or some other such torture but Huan managed to get him to release it into the hedge. There were (almost) audible sighs of relief from both of us. The two little lads followed us for quite a long way, chatting away about all sorts. The oldest one, (he was 12, the other was 11), advised us to stay away from Northern Myanmar because of the bad people there, we could end up with missing body parts! Where his info comes from we have no idea. On the other hand he told us that Myanmar, by which he meant the south part, was very safe and we could go there as tourists. He said that his ‘brother’ was a boss there and he could take us! Here they are with Huan, behind me.

The oldest, and chattiest one, is nearest to me. Apart from non-stop chatting they were also chewing betel nut leaves and, believe it or not, smoking! The oldest one was almost chain smoking, I think to show off. No matter what we tried to tell him it made no difference.

Having managed to leave them behind at the end of the village we began our trek back through the countryside. I’m always amazed that Huan never seems to know where we are. Mind you, as I looked back down this road I did wonder whether the betel nut trees could have thrown her off. They were not there in the past.

It’s been a while so I thought you might need to see some more bananas.

And Huan found yet another lizard, a rather odd looking one.

“That’s a nice view” said Huan, so I moved slightly so that the pylons disappeared and got two ‘nice views’ for you. She was pleased, I hope you are too!

In the middle of the countryside we still managed to find another car decoration for you. 花有在开的那天, Huā yǒu zài kāi dì nèitiān - The day the flowers bloomed, 人有重逢的时候吗, rén yǒu chóngféng de shíhòu ma - is there ever a time when people meet again? Put it all together and it translates as “On the day when the flowers bloom, will there be a time when people meet again?” I’m sure you get the idea but what the picture has to do with it is anyone’s guess.

Let’s finish the day with little creatures again, first a lizard found for me by Huan and a butterfly I found all by myself. Aren’t I a clever boy?

And then the last two were both found by, and photographed by our artistic director, Huan! I didn’t know about the lizard until we got home. The mantis she picked up off the floor and put on my hand. It had begun to rain so the camera was tucked up nice and safe. Watching the mantis while Huan was trying to take its photograph it seemed to keep turning away from her phone. With the camera it usually seems to peer into the lens. Anyway, she got one, and we managed to bet the rain home, success all round.

October 23^rd Once again we had another boring day; shopping and rain were to blame. At least I finished ‘The Equalizer’ film series with Denzel Washington and started the original with Edward Woodward. It is very different, nowhere near the same level of violence but then again it was a TV series and it was in the 1980s. Now all I have to do is find ‘Callan’.

Shopping was not what it should have been, there seemed to be quite a shortage of vegetables in the supermarket. The story is that due to the severe weather ships couldn’t put to sea and therefore stocks could not be replenished. All we have had is a tropical depression with a lot of rain but no wind to speak of, definitely no typhoons. We’ll try the ‘real’ market tomorrow.

So, because of the weather we are early, and with fewer pictures for you than usual. Hopefully what there is will be enough to slake your thirst for exoticism. With a little luck the weather will improve and we will get out more this week. Keep your fingers crossed for us! Bieeeee!