As we were off Huangshan Mountain promptly, we took the opportunity to visit a scenic village of Hongcun in the province of Anhui. Hongcun was established in 1131 by Wang Wen, a general during the Southern Song dynasty.
This UNESCO designated site was very popular as expected. But beautiful.
As we’d seen before, this place was busy with photoshoots.
The village had numerous boutiques where you hired your outfit, had makeup applied and, with photographer in tow, took arty shots all over the place. Packages seemed to range from 100 Yuan ~£11 upwards - 1000 Yuan gets you exclusive vintage locations. I kind of got the appeal, but was surprised at how big an industry it was. JC didn't get the brief ;-)
Hongcun was designed by a woman (nice to see one appear in history) and has an irrigation system across the village consisting of channels and lakes. The village layout is Feng Shui and mirrors the shape of a cow. The nearby hill, Leigang Hill, is the head and two trees on it are horns. The four bridges are legs and the houses, the main body. The village has many streams (the cow's intestines) providing residential water sources.
The moon lake in the centre is the cow’s first stomach, photo below. The larger lake (first photo) was an additional lake/stomach added later.
We started at the old school and enjoyed people watching.
There are around 150 residences here but some of these marvellous houses are not as old as they appear. The one below was rebuilt in 1990. The Chinese are good at recreating period pieces but it seems at the expense of keeping the original ones (eg rebuild not renovate).
Beautiful carvings. Apparently the architecture and carvings dating back to the Ming and Qing dynasties and are said to be among the best of their kind in China.
Back in Tunxi we ate out, once again trying to navigate a Chinese menu with English translation of sorts. Few places do vegetables as anything but a side so, once again, I had rice and stir fried greens. JC ordered chicken and was treated to a whole chicken. Well, not quite, as he could only find one foot.
Sunday 27 October 2024
We were both very tired today. By this stage of the holiday I was regularly sleeping over 9 hours a night due to the energy expended each day. So we started slowly and in a lazy choice went to Starbucks for breakfast knowing that it would have decent coffee. We’ve found coffee here very hit and miss but knew Starbucks would be reliable. It’s also reliable with its prices and we pretty much paid UK prices for our cup of nectar. I had an expensive yoghurt but I was craving something non-boiled for breakfast.
We visited Xidi, another UNESCO designated scenic village. It was built a tad earlier than Hongcun, during the Huangyou era (1049–1053) of Song dynasty Emperor Renzong.
Unlike yesterday, this village was strangely, and to our relief, far less popular. Xidi was lived in by the Hu family, wealthy tea merchants from the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), which lead to many buildings being built. Xidi's prosperity peaked in the 18th and 19th centuries, but folded as the feudal system in China disintegrated in the late 19th century.
Nowadays there are 224 ancient residential buildings, dating from between the 14th and 19th centuries clustered near the three streams that make up the city. The rice fields, lake and overall vista were pleasant although I was temporarily distracted by the duck steps - which the ducks dutifully plodded over much to my amusement.
We had all afternoon to wander around Xidi.
We stopped for lunch - again another hit and miss affair with the translation app. I’m finding that the veggie dishes are always very bland, presumably because they are an accompaniment to fiery meat courses. So I now take to ordering chilli sauce on the side. Meanwhile the amazing tour continued.
I popped into a gift shop and found the toys on offer (complete with rocket launcher).
The irrigation of the village was similar to Hongcun.
I was disappointed to discover this quaint water wheel was motorised and nowhere near a stream! And the bronze cows were obviously a tad staged.
The rain kindly held off until we headed home.
Once back in Tunxi we shopped for breakfast/lunch tomorrow - our standard fare of rolls for JC, bananas, dried fruit, nuts and coke/water. All for £5.
I found a fun bike which you had to pedal to make the lights come on - how could I resist? And, most importantly, I found a sign that told me where I was in the world.
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