THE STORY

Zhaoxing is the biggest Dong Minority village in China, and after spending a week travelling around the smaller ones, it certainly seemed like a step back towards civilization. It was very nice and even had a few shops, where you could buy some very basic food. I stocked up on water and peanuts, and wished later that I’d taken more, although the selection was so limited I’m not sure what else I would have chosen.

There were people sitting along the streets selling hacked up bits of animals they'd slaughtered, including quite a lot of little dogs. There were lots of live animals around here as well, and we saw a large cow running away from a laughing little boy who was chasing after it through the dirt track running through the centre of the town. There were also an enormous amount of fireworks on sale, and lots of children playing with them. It made me a little uncomfortable the amount of banging that was going on all over the place.

The village is in a valley and after spending all of 20 minutes walking along most of the streets and making our way from one end of the village to the other, I, along with my three friends, decided to try and find my way up one of the hills which surrounded us.

We had no map, but it was quite easy to find a little path leading up the hill behind someone’s little wooden house at the edge of the village. After a bit of a scramble up a narrow muddy path studded with rocks, we found ourselves on a track, and followed it for about 20 minutes around the mountainside to a village. Here the track turned even muddier and steeper, and we had to wade through about 10cm of sludge up between the  houses with lots of little dogs yapping at us. At the top, we again found a little path behind someone’s house, and walked up it. It was less muddy here and we started to move into the land used for farming. There were terraces all over the mountainside, and we said hello to several little farmers along the way who were washing their radishes before taking them back down the hill, or digging up the ground to plant more things.

We stopped for a breather and an elderly couple passed us on the narrow winding path, both with poles across their backs carrying baskets of something or other, and herding a few cattle up the hill.

After almost an hour of twists and turns and guessing which fork to take as the path split here and there, we found ourselves on another track. Not knowing where we were or where we wanted to go save for in the direction of ‘up’, we decided to climb up to the orchard which rose with a bit of a cliff on the other side of the road. It was very strange there, and we felt just like we were in the Mediterranean. The ground was again very muddy, and this time so slippery that it was impossible to walk normally. We made our way up, grabbing onto tree trunks or walking on all fours to avoid slipping right down to the bottom again.

Less than half an hour later, we emerged to more terraces and the top of the hill. There were a few trees there and it was not the most interesting summit, but the view was beautiful. All of the hills around were patterned with terraces, and it’s hard to imagine how much work must have gone into creating this. These people really had done all they could to get the most out of their surroundings.

We took another route down from the top to avoid the slippery mud, but it turned out to be almost as bad, and my friends fell several times on the way through the trees. Then the path ended and we had to scramble down through a wild forest where I took my turn in slipping and getting my hand scratched to pieces, before we reached another track, where a little man drove past on his horse and cart.

We left the track again, and I led the group down the hill, taking the little paths which encircle each rice terrace, jumping down from one to the next, feeling like I was on an exciting adventure and imagining we were the Famous Five, leading the way through little patches of trees and jumping down short cliffs. At one point I slipped and my leg plunged into a flooded rice field, covering me with mud. I hope I didn’t spoil too much rice.

After a while we reached the first track we had taken, just below the steep muddy village, and followed it back down to the back of the little house to re-enter Zhaoxing, where we had a lukewarm shower and a good meal, probably containing part of the pig who we had seen herded past our guest house earlier in the day.

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