Bei Shan is a peasant village about 40kms from Qingtian. A lot of our students are from there so we took a day trip out there to check out the place. To really put a dampner on the story at the start they will build a hydroelectric power station there and the dam construction is underway. 8,000 people will be relocated. As the people are peasants they are poorly educated (or not at all) and there is a feeling of anxiety amongst them.

We headed out there with Mr Hua and his wife yesterday, they now live in Bei Shan as Mr Hua's job is convincing the people to move and negotiating a package deal for them, what there house is worth, how much land they have that sort of thing.

The 40kms took us an hour and half, along the way we saw an upturned truck - the road is crap!!! We passed through heaps of little villages, but what struck us as odd was a person would just yell "Ting yi xia" Meaning - Stop I want to get off and they would just walk off in to nowhere.

Our final stop was in Bai Yan. It's a very small village named after the white rock that can be found there. It was really early and we walked down the main road; the only road through a market with dogs, ducks and goats all walking freely. People were just going about their normal business and they were very happy. Much happier than in Qingtian.

It's hard to tell where Bei Shan and Bai Yan divide into two, but we soon found out. We were walking along with Mr Hua when he said "I'm afraid there isn't much to do in Bei Shan, we could walk up to that temple" now pointing to an almost invisible temple, it was so high in the mountain. I did not see Trev's face but it was one off shock and when I replied "Great let's go" it apparantly turned to one of dismay.

Chinese people love climbing mountains, normally at the top there is a temple and this was the same. It took about an hour to get to the top, and sweat was pouring out of us. I mean pouring. All of us were soaked as another great comment came from Mr Hua "The weather today is much cooler"

At the top of the mountain we met the grounds keeper of the temple. A very nice man who you would not expect at a temple. I'm sure if I could have understood him we would have had a great old time telling dirty jokes and swilling beers. I'm not sure what the etiquette is but I'm pretty sure smoking and throwing the butts on the floor is not kosher in a temple. We did anyway.

From the temple you could see over the town below, there is a visible bend and hill which divides the two towns, but from the ground you just seem to walk along the same road.

Mr Hua's wife bought some candles and incense sticks plus some material paper. She then went to a number of wishing stands and lit them. Problem is she nearly set herself on fire. The material paper went up in flames and the last we saw she was running crazily around the temple grounds. The grounds keeper smoke in hand went to help by throwing them into a giant kettle. I was expecting a bucket of water.

Trev and I returned to the hotel we were staying at and had a chat with the owner. There were kids everywhere and we asked to take a photo of them, they were a little afraid and went screaming away. You wouldn't know it because 5 minutes later they were asking us to take their photo and Trev was "King of the Kids". Where all the kids came from we had no idea, but I stepped out into the street to take a market photo and saw the primary school. I was mugged by about 100 kids. Their teacher was standing at the school gate trying to persuade them back to class. Good bloody luck!!!

The afternoon we just wandered around the town, snapping pictures of everything and anything. We saw a lady walking her goats, some mad max vehicles and people just mosing around. It was a great afternoon.

The evening came and we met up with Mr Hua and friends. Everywhere we went we attracted some attention, but unlike Qingtian the stares came with conversation, albeit in a dialect we couldn't understand but always with a smile. We spoke a little and laughed a lot.

For a town that won't be there a year from now, people were still going about their business and although they are afraid of the inevitable, everywhere we went we were greeted with a smile and a handshake. They knew who we were and thanked us for teaching their kids. I feel a little sentimental about the place, unlike in winter when we went to 3 Gorges Dam on the Chang Jiang where it just felt like "oh well it's terrible that people had to be relocated for a dam" but in Bei Shan and Bai Yan we know some people this will affect first hand. I wish them well for the future and totally enjoyed my time in their small corner of China which will soon not be there.