2015 China

22 March, Hongcun to Tangkou
Unreadable name 120CNY

Having stored our bags at The Donkey Commune Hotpot, we took a red three-wheel car up a hill painted yellow by rapeseed fields to the Mukeng bamboo forest where the remarkable Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon bamboo-top fight scenes were filmed. We spent a leisurely three hours walking a circular route through the forest, bamboo above and below us, green and lovely. It is spring in China, a time when bamboo shoots feature prominently in Chinese cuisine. In the forest we saw locals harvesting shoots and lugging shoot-laden baskets up steep tracks to sell to passing tourists or take home for dinner. Bamboo facts: Bamboo is a grass not a tree. Bamboo is one of the fastest-growing plants in the world, some varieties growing one millimetre every two minutes. Amongst other things, bamboo is used for building materials and scaffolding, and as a food source. Bamboo begins life at the same diameter at which it matures. “Bamboo has a higher compressive strength than wood, brick or concrete and a tensile strength that rivals steel” (Wikipedia).

Our Hongcun hotel host, a young woman with a 12-year old son, offered to drive us to Tangkou, for a reasonable fee, as she was on her way to her husband’s family home at the Nine Dragon Waterfall and had to pass through the city from which we have to take our bus to Shanghai tomorrow. We stopped in at her family home en route, meeting her dad who raised her and her three siblings following her mom’s death when she was just 13.  

Our Tangkou hotel was excellent value for money featuring a much-needed heater as well as electric blankets; and we dined well at Mr Cheng’s tiny restaurant (“Tourist Information; English Menu”) on eggplant and shredded potato, both with minced pork. The restaurant features two tables only; Mr Cheng’s wife and daughter were doing the daughter’s homework at the other.