Qiongzhong
Not a place name that readily comes to mind and given the way the local look at me get the impression that not too many foreigners or tourists come here.
Now up in the central highland area of Hainan, largely dominated by the Li and Miao people. Largely green and forested with small villages and friendly natives. This place only a small town and easy enough to get around and surrounded by pretty countryside and hills. However its another one of those Chinese towns that suffered from over enthusiastic kitchen tile salesmen. When the west realised that those horrible white kitchen/bathroom tiles aren’t actually that nice they sent the factories producing them to China who then thought why not cover our horrible grey buildings and everything else with white kitchen tiles. Probably looked ok at the time or maybe not !! but now….. At least newer buildings tend to be an improvement here as elsewhere. Other than that not a lot here but friendly, lots of coffee houses and even more oranges. Given the scenic surrounding countryside surprising how there isn’t any tourist development but I expect will one day come.
Spent the previous 3 nights in Wuzhishan which sounds more like a central asian republic but actually China’s smallest city and bar 7000 university students not a lot there. But a chilled out type of place, very slow moving and was nice to wander the countryside and just chat to local student from the various provinces. Yesterday went out hiking into the surrounding hills with a group of the students. All good fun even if held up for quite a while due to some local officials demanding payment for us to carry on. Which our group insisted they had no right to charge and it was illegal. Watching a group of students demanding their “rights” against Chinese officialdom provided sound entertainment !! As it was we lost the argument but not to be outdone we then hacked out way thru the forest over the hills making our own paths and checking out on the local snake population. Hard going as very thick forest and type of bindweed constantly wrapping itself around you but amusing and finally found our destination.
Tomorrow of to Haikou.
Tags: China, Travel
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