Ayi had lunch ready and we sat down to fish and vegetables with garlic and ginger: I could taste menthol though, which was weird.
‘What is that?’ I asked nobody in particular. ‘That taste in the food is like menthol.’ I studied my bowl trying to figure out where the flavour was coming from then . . . shit, I could feel the filling in my mouth. I spat it out. The menthol I could taste was the clove oil the dentist had used on my tooth.
Russ was outside on deck. Feeling really pissed off again, I told him what had happened.
‘That’s bad,’ he said. ‘We’ve got five days before we make it to Hanoi which is probably where the next decent dentist will be. If your tooth gets infected we’ll be in real trouble.’
‘It’s a fuck up.’ I wagged my head. ‘He obviously didn’t put it in properly.’
‘Spinach,’ Russ suggested. ‘Spinach and chewing gum, that’ll fix it. Or there’s always Claudio’s old remedy: him and Jim Foster, remember? Whenever they cut themselves they’d sew the wound with a line of superglue. You could use it to fill the hole in your tooth, Charley. What do you think?’
‘Superglue in my mouth. I don’t think that’s a good idea. Mind you,’ I added, ‘I did have my lips superglued together once.’
‘Really?’ Russ said. ‘Now that’s an idea.’
Luckily, because the dentist had removed the nerve the tooth didn’t hurt. We were landing in a town tomorrow where there was bound to be someone who could refill it. Talking of town, we’d been on the barge a few hours already and it looked as though we’d never left Guangzhou. Buildings dominated the concrete levee; industrial complexes, apartment blocks and one old brick house that looked like something from a film set. It was half on the bank and half on stilts: an incredibly ancient place that looked as if it would collapse any moment.
There was still a lot of traffic - barges, smaller boats and some traditional Chinese junks with oval black panels and canopies. They looked like water beetles skating across the surface.
Passing beneath a bridge we found ourselves side by side with another barge, which had the boom of a crane sticking out the front like the sword on a marlin. With two more coming the other way we passed four abreast on a stretch of river no wider than the Thames at Westminster.
Five hours after we’d boarded we were still among buildings, at least on the starboard side. The other bank was low and lush, the landscape flat and grey with buffalo cropping the grass close to the water. Liang-Su told me that as little as fifteen years ago there had been nothing here; even ten years ago Guangzhou had been pretty much the clutch of buildings we’d seen near the hotel - now the industrial sprawl seemed to go on for ever.
It had been raining hard, but later in the afternoon the sun came out, warming up so much I changed into flip-flops and shorts. Then it started raining again, so I went to help Ayi in the tiny kitchen. Somehow she managed to do all her cooking on one single-ring electric stove.
Regardless of how basic their lifestyle might be, there was a wonderfully chilled and friendly feel to this family. I took a moment sitting with Liang-Su as he steered close to the concrete levee. We could only communicate if Shiyi translated but we didn’t really need to talk: I’ve learned that you can often get a good idea of someone’s life just by hanging out with them and saying very little.
It was dusk before we left the last of the buildings, the banks hazy and the water a rich terracotta as the sun went down.
Although the boat was about a hundred and fifty feet long, it was impossible to get away from the noise of the engine. I tried sleeping in the wheelhouse, but lying on the steel floor with the noise and the vibration, there was no way I was going to get any sleep. At around five-thirty I took a chair outside and slumped back with my feet on the rail and a blanket over me. When it started to rain again, I got up, bleary-eyed, and sought shelter under the bamboo canopy, where I found an empty hammock. Lying back and closing my eyes I dozed for an hour or so.
Despite another restless night, I loved being on the barge: the method of travel and the pace were a terrific antidote to the disappointment I’d felt at having to take that plane. The way the family lived and worked together really touched me and I kept thinking how cool it would be to have Olly, Doone and Kinvara along with me. Ayi was the hub of the whole thing, while Liang-Su and the two boys worked the boat. Chi-Chi had been on one barge or another for fifteen years and told me it was good fun: they made decent money and he enjoyed life on the river. He knew every landmark, each industrial area or cement works; he knew where the ferries crossed. He pointed out a pagoda-style tower and the spots where buffalo liked to wallow. The further west we were moving the more the countryside changed: it was mountainous now, the hillsides thick with vegetation, sloping right to the water.
I felt really privileged; few people get to see China like this. Liang-Su said that ten years ago there had been lots of passenger boats on this river, but then the economy went into overdrive and the roads were built: now everyone travelled by bus or car.
The two brothers seemed to get on really well, always messing about, laughing and joking. Lorau (or ‘younger brother’) was eighteen, and had been on the barge for a year. Prior to that he had been at school in his mother’s village, living with his grandmother.
We were due to get off in Wuzhou around midday, but because the river was so swollen we’d slowed to nothing last night and Liang-Su told us we were five hours behind schedule.
‘Five hours!’ Russ said when I informed him. ‘How can we be five hours behind schedule?’
I explained about the river and that the barge was only doing three miles an hour, but regardless of the reasons the fact was we wouldn’t be in Wuzhou when we’d planned, which threw us right out. If we carried on at this pace it would be five or six in the evening before we made it and we’d miss the bus to Yangshuo. There was another leaving at one a.m. but that would mean an overnighter when already we were suffering from lack of sleep.
‘We have another option,’ Russ said.
‘What’s that?’
‘We get Liang-Su to drop us at one of the ferry crossings. Shiyi thinks that Taotao could meet us on the road and get us to Wuzhou in time to catch the bus.’
‘Why don’t we get off at the next town instead?’ I suggested. ‘It might take a bit longer to get there but at least it’s a town. That makes more sense than hopping off any old place.’
Liang-Su told us the next town was Fengkai, still a couple of hours away. We should get there at around three o’clock. If Taotao met us, we would still have two hours to make the bus station at Wuzhou.
All decided, we kept to the shade of the bamboo now that the sun was high, watching water buffalo swimming off the starboard bank. We spent the rest of the trip watching fishermen trying to scrape a living either with rods from the bank or rowing flat-bottomed skiffs.
An hour and a half later Liang-Su cut the engine and steered the barge to the banks on the southern side. Chi-Chi tied off and we unloaded the gear. It was blisteringly hot and with my clothes sticking to me and my old suitcase on my head, I waded up through the undergrowth to the road.
It was sad to say goodbye, we’d been with this family a day and a half and it had been one of the most enriching experiences of the expedition so far. We’d eaten with them and slept with them, we’d seen a way of life we’d no idea existed. But we were on the move again now and the next few hundred miles we’d cover by bus and train before taking Russian motorbikes on to Hanoi.
As promised Taotao picked us up and took us to Wuzhou. We made the bus, riding seven bumpy hours through open country on rubbish roads littered with roadworks. By the time we arrived in Yangshuo it was late and, pretty knackered, we rode pillion on a couple of motorcycle taxis to a small hotel in the oldest part of town.
All of a sudden it hit me: we were in China. The plane from Nepal was forgotten. Rolling into bed I fell asleep thinking of the river family, my dad in Ireland, and how far we’d come.
18
Pigs on Bikes
We’d been on the road a long time now so we decided to relax for a bit when we got to Yangshuo. It’s an old town, and a lot of its streets are closed to all but pedestrians. There are very few cars, and loads of motorbikes. There were more tourists here, too. The buildings were older than many we’d seen, with flaking paint and scrolled iron balconies overlooking the streets. The town is built on the banks of the Little Li river amid a valley of rice paddies dominated by the most incredible mountains - gigantic green domes thrusting skywards from an otherwise flat landscape, the result of tectonic plate movement two hundred million years ago.
Today was our fifty-third on the road, and jumping aboard a raft we crossed to where the summits sloped into sheer cliffs that disappeared beneath the surface of the river. ‘It’s amazing here, isn’t it?’ Russ said. ‘The perfect place to chill for a while, and recover from being on the road.’
I couldn’t agree more. It was stunning - mountainous but tropical, with rice paddies and bean fields on one side, and a clutch of fishermen’s huts built on bamboo stilts on the other. Our pilot explained that it was a holiday destination for many Chinese people, but he didn’t encounter that many westerners.
Our raft was made from lengths of plastic pipe tied together. In the past it would have been made of bamboo, but the driver explained that bamboo wasn’t strong enough to carry more than two or three passengers whereas ours could cope with as many as eight. It was powered by an outboard, with the propeller on the end of a long metal shaft. I felt a bit like Martin Sheen sailing down the river in
Apocalypse Now
, the mountains and lush green landscape rolling by.
The area was much more geared towards tourism than we had been used to on this trip, which was a bit of a culture shock after our day on the barge. Rafting further downriver we did find a traditional village, which from the water looked like a Buddhist temple. In fact it was home to farmers and fishermen. There were no cars, just handcarts and animals; the buildings, bean fields and paddies interlinked by stone walkways. It was a little contrived, perhaps, a ‘minority village’ maintained specifically for tourism. Even so, it was a tranquil place, with buffalo wallowing in a pool of water, women in straw hats picking the rice crop and young men squatting on bamboo rafts with fishing rods and catch nets.
Returning to Yangshuo, we visited some water caves close to the town and took a mud bath three hundred metres underground. The locals claimed the mud had healing qualities but I have to admit I didn’t find the experience very therapeutic. Wearing hard hats, swimming trunks and flip-flops, we made a nervous descent into the caves. There were no guides and no lights - we had to carry torches to find our way.
We had to squeeze through some very narrow gaps - potholes in the walls and floors leading into tight, spiralling chimneys. In one section there was only a heavy chain to grip on to as we edged down the rough steps. It was hard work and I felt quite anxious as we picked our way down.
‘They call this “spelunking” in the States, you know,’ Russ called out.
‘Spelunking?’ I spluttered. ‘That can’t be right, can it? I mean, it sounds a bit like—’
‘Charley!’ Russ cut me off. ‘Don’t go there.’
In the torchlight the mud looked like butterscotch Angel Delight, but with a thin, slimy consistency. I kept thinking of all the bodies that had been slopping around in that same bath of mud. It was so cold it took your breath away. I lay there for just a few minutes then quickly rinsed off. Coming back in semi-darkness, I stopped to sort out my flip-flop and the others went ahead. Moving on again I stepped down to what I thought was the tunnel. Instead I found myself in a recess in the rock, with a pool of water below. It was a little unnerving: I was sure we’d come that way, but I couldn’t hear the others any more. Shining my torch over the walls, I realised I had indeed taken the wrong turning. As I headed back up, I squinted at all the passages, fissures and clefts in the rock. It would be very easy to get lost down here. There had been flash floods in the area and earth tremors: given what was going on in other parts of the country it was probably not a good idea to be underground at all. I was relieved when I finally made it back into the open.
Later that afternoon we were lucky enough to take a hot air balloon up to see the mountains - a stunning view of conical peaks stretching away while the glittering river bisected the valley below. Unfortunately there wasn’t much wind, which meant we couldn’t travel very far. When the pilot opened the burner it was so hot it felt as though the top of my head was on fire.
After about an hour we descended. At first I thought we were going to land smack in the middle of a farmer’s crop: but then the pilot threw out a line which was picked up by three men on the ground. They steered us over the fields until we could set down on the road.
That evening we watched the sun going down in shafts of gold that grazed the sides of the mountain. It was spectacular and reminded me of some of the sunsets we’d seen in Sudan. That started me thinking about motorbikes. All of a sudden I was itching to get to Vietnam, where we would be riding bikes and then driving an old US army jeep.
Back in town we took a walk along the quay and came across a few bamboo rafts where the owners were fishing with cormorants. I’d read about this but had never seen it. I wasn’t sure how it worked but we were keen to find out. With half a dozen birds perched on the front of the boat, the fishermen took us out to where the river was flowing swiftly. The birds were in the water now, swimming ahead while the men lit the surface with lamps held on poles. The fish were attracted to the light and as they appeared the birds dived after them.
The Chinese have been using cormorants for about three hundred years, though these days it was more of a tourist attraction. The Japanese have been using them even longer than that, since at least the fifteenth century, but the oldest records came from Peru a thousand years before that. They say necessity is the mother of invention, and I imagined some old guy watching these birds and realising their talents could be harnessed. How the first one was tamed I have no idea, but the fishermen tied a snare at the base of the cormorant’s throat so it couldn’t swallow its catch completely. It dived for a fish, swallowed it as far as it could and then back on the raft a fisherman made the bird spit out the fish.