Heading north from Wenzhou, Zhejiang, in a bumpy bus, the dense and vertical architecture of Wenzhou gave way to the Ou Jiang (river). Beyond that, the city quickly fades into vast farmland; laborers tending to the marshes, vegetation continues to thrive as it has always been. As the lanes get narrower, and the cities get smaller, you can see more and more road-side stands of people selling their fruits and wares. These roads eventually and eventually run into intermittent stretches of dirt. We start making our way up a mountain and the villages become densely packed again, this time along the flattened roads weaving through the terrain. The buildings all have storefronts, but it seems like most of the people are lounging around in front as if they live there. The pace seems much slower up in these winding streets as kids run around playing while the elders gossip or tend to their stews, meats, or shelves.
The streets we take lead us to the Zeya Gorge, somewhere near the Nanxi River area and Yandang Mountain range. The gorge is a natural area cut out of rock by the aqua-blue waters coursing through its turns.
Lone wolf
Tofu lady
Every now and then, instead of reading a paper menu, you can choose your dishes straight out of the kitchen fridge.
Women making bamboo paper. We stumbled upon this little operation as we were walking back to our bus. The first thing we noticed was the crackling of bamboo against a wall as a flatbed truck loaded up with the poles was maneuvering to park on the side of the road. Then, the stench came hit our noses. To process the bamboo into paper, they have disintegrate the fibers into pulp. I think a combination of heat, water, and some level of rotting allows this to happen. When it is ready, a screen is dunked into the mixture, swished around a few times, and a fine layer of bamboo pulp is pulled out of the liquid and laid out on a stack of other previously made sheets. Later on, we noticed various dimensions of bamboo paper draped over a bamboo lattices across many fields, left out in the sun to dry.
While I love seeing the various cities of the world, and enjoyed passing through the villages of China, I always get a kick out of seeing the natural scenery of the world. When you take away the buildings, people, or any signs of culture, you see the world for what it is. Boulders moved into place by water. Plants battling it out for sunlight. It's the same place that has existed for ages beyond what we as humans could possibly understand or experience. It was formed by the raging forces of the universe without regard to where people or animals were or what we needed. Nature is the ultimate aesthetic ideal. Respect.
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