From Dalaoling to Ankang
After spending four days at Dalaoling, our group headed up to Ankang in Shaanxi province. After a 3 hour drive back to Yichang City, our group had a final lunch with our hosts from Dalaoling in Yichang. Then, we headed off to the train station where we would ride in a soft care - for about 10 hours! - to Ankang.
The trip actually wasn't that bad. On the trains in China, one can either ride in a "hard car" or a "soft car". The hard cars mean all you get is a seat. The soft cars mean that there are four beds in a room. There were seven of us.
We had the mistaken impression that one could kind of rent out the whole room. But that's not the case. Once just rents the beds, like you would any seat. How strange that one could share sleeping arrangements with three other complete strangers! But our group split so there would be only one other person w/ the Freds and Songlin, and he didn't arrive until almost midnight.
We finally arrived in Ankang at about 2:30am. IT was drizzling a bit, but our hosts met us and accompanied us to our hotel. Thankfully, they would give us until noon to rest. Still, most of us got up early and used the morning after breakfast to go out and explore the town of Ankang.
Our last meal with our Dalaoling hosts in Yichang City.
As everywhere else on the trip, we ate well on the train. Here, Songlin shares with us his passion for fish heads. While I do not share his passion, I appreciate that he likes them. And he is always welcome to those fish heads that are presented to me in the future.
Out on the town of Ankang. Our first chance to buy chestnuts! In the pan, the marketer roasts larger nuts of "ban li" while they call the smaller nuts in the basket at right from "mao li". When pertaining to trees, the "mao li" would be Castanea seguinii and "ban li" would be Castanea mollissima. Of course, it's very difficult to tell the difference between the species on nuts alone. We had our suspicions that those in the market just call small nuts "mao li" and large nuts "ban li", without - necessarily - any connection to the actual species. But we can't confirm that.
A scene from the part of the market with fresh produce. It was incredible to see the amount of fresh meats and vegetables at this market. I'll post some other images of the markets around Ankang later. What even more impressive, though, is that most of the time, these carts are brought in by a person. They aren't hauled by a large truck, but a person. It was incredible to see farmers lugging these carts up the road - usually while smoking a cigarette. They have to be very heavy.
More food! In the foreground, you'll see what I *swear* was the Chinese version of beans and cornbread. All I wanted was a little bit of tabasco or Frank's Red Hot and it would have been perfect. It's hard to believe, but we ate _even more_ in Ankang than we had been. Thanks to Madame Tang, we never had less than 20 dishes at any given meal. You would be so full and really think there could be no way they'd bring more food, and there the waitresses would be, bringing in a whole fish, another stew, and a huge thing of rice. Every time the door would creak open, we'd all cring, just knowing there'd be more food coming along.
The trip actually wasn't that bad. On the trains in China, one can either ride in a "hard car" or a "soft car". The hard cars mean all you get is a seat. The soft cars mean that there are four beds in a room. There were seven of us.
We had the mistaken impression that one could kind of rent out the whole room. But that's not the case. Once just rents the beds, like you would any seat. How strange that one could share sleeping arrangements with three other complete strangers! But our group split so there would be only one other person w/ the Freds and Songlin, and he didn't arrive until almost midnight.
We finally arrived in Ankang at about 2:30am. IT was drizzling a bit, but our hosts met us and accompanied us to our hotel. Thankfully, they would give us until noon to rest. Still, most of us got up early and used the morning after breakfast to go out and explore the town of Ankang.
Our last meal with our Dalaoling hosts in Yichang City.
View from the train as the sun sets.
As everywhere else on the trip, we ate well on the train. Here, Songlin shares with us his passion for fish heads. While I do not share his passion, I appreciate that he likes them. And he is always welcome to those fish heads that are presented to me in the future.
Out on the town of Ankang. Our first chance to buy chestnuts! In the pan, the marketer roasts larger nuts of "ban li" while they call the smaller nuts in the basket at right from "mao li". When pertaining to trees, the "mao li" would be Castanea seguinii and "ban li" would be Castanea mollissima. Of course, it's very difficult to tell the difference between the species on nuts alone. We had our suspicions that those in the market just call small nuts "mao li" and large nuts "ban li", without - necessarily - any connection to the actual species. But we can't confirm that.
A scene from the part of the market with fresh produce. It was incredible to see the amount of fresh meats and vegetables at this market. I'll post some other images of the markets around Ankang later. What even more impressive, though, is that most of the time, these carts are brought in by a person. They aren't hauled by a large truck, but a person. It was incredible to see farmers lugging these carts up the road - usually while smoking a cigarette. They have to be very heavy.
More food! In the foreground, you'll see what I *swear* was the Chinese version of beans and cornbread. All I wanted was a little bit of tabasco or Frank's Red Hot and it would have been perfect. It's hard to believe, but we ate _even more_ in Ankang than we had been. Thanks to Madame Tang, we never had less than 20 dishes at any given meal. You would be so full and really think there could be no way they'd bring more food, and there the waitresses would be, bringing in a whole fish, another stew, and a huge thing of rice. Every time the door would creak open, we'd all cring, just knowing there'd be more food coming along.
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