For part one of this trip report, see yesterday’s post on the Dragon’s Backbone Rice Terraces.
When we arrived in Sanjiang, a smallish town in northeast Guangxi, we found that we had missed the last bus to the Chengyang Wind and Rain Bridge. Lonely Planet’s description of Sanjiang — a “bog-standard town” — was both incomprehensible and unappealing, so spending the night there was not an attractive option. Instead, we turned to Sanjiang’s fleet of autorickshaws — a rare sight in China today — for a lift.
One mildly harrowing ride later, we disembarked in the dark next to the Chengyang Wind and Rain Bridge. Our hostel had a great location immediately beside the bridge, and we ate dinner from a patio overlooking it. Just as we were about to turn in for the night, there was noticed the largest spider any of us had ever seen outside of a zoo. Cue mild shrieking (from the women) and a valiant attempt to assert man’s control over nature (from the man). It was, however, an evasive little bugger. Around 4 a.m., the spider was finally vanquished, and we all slept easier.
The next day, we overcame our spider-related fatigue and got an earlyish start. We began with the Wind and Rain Bridge, just up the road from our hotel. The elaborate covered bridge was built without any nails in the beginning of the 20th century. As its name suggests, it was meant to offer shelter from the elements as well as to connect two banks of the river. Beneath the bridge, water wheels turn, irrigating the surrounding rice fields.
From the bridge, we walked through a string of nearby Dong villages, all of which seemed surprisingly bereft of people. Each one had its own many-roofed drum tower, serving as the community’s main gathering place. On Monday, though, we encountered just a couple of groups of men playing games and talking. But when we got to the village of Chengyang, the mystery of the empty streets was solved: it was market day, and everyone was in town buying fruit, seeds, and even live pigs.
Back at the bridge, we realized that we’d managed to avoid the rather laxly-enforced 60 RMB entrance fee by arriving late the previous night. After patting ourselves on the back for that, we got back on the bus to Sanjiang and from there to Guilin and on to Changsha. All in all, it was a satisfyingly non-urban China getaway — better than Guilin itself, for sure, and even rivaling Yangshuo for beautiful scenery and hiking opportunities.
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