Minority Villages of South Eastern Guizhou

Costumes drying in Basha
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Having left Kaili, our first stop was Xijing. The journey was amazing, through mountainous hills. The village itself is comprised entirely of wooden buildings, builts on stilts into the hillside. There are chicks and goslings running about. Pigs, horses and water buffalo stabled in the lowest rooms of the houses and the families live on top.

A friendly woman offered us a place to stay in her house and we went up the hill after her. We ate with the family that evening, lovely food.  They also insisted on giving us copious amounts of rice wine, they would sing a song and present the wine to us. Pretty soon we were merry and singing too. This continued for some time and I was fairly drunk, to even the score I brought out some Irish whiskey I'd had in my bag for months and gave it to the family. They demolished it in short order after much lip smacking and after dipping their little fingers in the bowls and scattering a few drops on the floor in a kind of blessing.

I spent the rest of the journey, completely missing the spectacular scenery Cathal was enjoying, mostly cause I had my head in a plastic bag

Winding pathway, Basha
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We got up very late the next morning and had some lunch with the family once again. Then the women dressed me up in their traditional costumes and we made our way to get the bus to our next destination, Leishan from where we could get another bus to Rongjiang.

It was pouring with rain when we got to Leishan and we ascertained eventually that their was a bus to Rongjiang, which had to be hailed on the street. This proved a problem for us since we can't read Chinese. However, as has so often happened, a little man adopted us and ran out to stop the bus for us. He yelled at us to Go Go Go and we went running onto the bus.

Paddy fields along the road
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At this point the rice wine was starting to catch up with me and about half an hour into our very bumpy and winding journey I threw up. They responded by giving me plastic bags and moving us to sit near the window. I spent the rest of the journey, completely missing the spectacular scenery Cathal was enjoying, mostly cause I had my head in a plastic bag.

Suddenly we stopped though and everyone piled off the bus. It turned out part of the road has collapsed and simply fallen into the valley below. There were some types who looked like engineers digging a hole in the remaining bit of road. We got back on the bus and I promptly fell asleep. We were woken up about an hour later and asked to get off the bus. The driver then drove over the road and we walked after the bus and got back on. I guess the engineers must have decided it might hold the weight of the bus after all!

Farmer and water buffalo, hard at work
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Anyhow, I still felt sick but managed to hold it together until we arrived at Rongjiang, whereupon Cathal booked us into a hotel with the all important en-suite. I was asleep in a huge bed by 9.30.

The next day we went to a little Dong village called Chejiang which was lovely. The Dong minority group look and dress very differently to the Miao. Their houses are also made of wood but are different in structure. It was interesting walking round, peering into the dark houses watching women weaving, embroidering and spinning wool.

Village rooftops and bamboo, Basha
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Up early again and we headed off to Basha which is a lovely series of five villages near Congjiang. The costumes were different again here and outside many of the houses there were little duck ponds with some happy ducks splashing about. There were also huge wooden racks for drying glutinous rice. Apparently the Miao believe they are descended from a maple tree and their religion is mainly animastic.