Day 9 - 20 Apr, Monday: 资源

. Tuesday, April 28, 2009

After i've arrived in 资源 on the previous day and was walking around looking for a place to stay, i established the fact that i was the only tourist in the whole town. After i've found a place to stay, i was trying to contact the official tour centre to arrange to go for a boat ride cum tour of 资江, which according to my guide book author is a must try and the reason why i went to 资源. But it turned out that since there wasn't even a single other tourist, i couldn't go for the tour since the boat requires a minimum of 8 people and i wasn't prepared to book a whole boat. But the tour centre staff had bad service and they didn't even bother recommending me some other place to visit.

Anyway, this pic was taken in the morning when i was walking to the tour centre and i think the whole town looked even better.
I happened to chance upon this scene and took this photo that could be quite suggestive.
In the end, while trying to look for a travel agency that i thought might be able to help me in arranging for the boat tour, i came across this place that was arranging whitewater rafting on 五排河. Though i can't go on their rafting tour because of the same reason that there weren't any other tourists, the friendly staff over there recommended that i go to 八角寨 and even gave me detailed instructions on how to reach there.

I took a tuk-tuk-like taxi to the transport station and from there i took a minivan to reach another town called 梅溪镇. And over there, after rejecting two van drivers who wanted to charge me exorbitant prices for sending me to 八角寨 even though it was a mere 9km, i found a motorcycle taxi driver who was charging 10yuan for the same service. I agreed and went for a motorcycle ride without a helmet. On the way, he was offering me a 50yuan package that includes the admission ticket and the transport there. I took up the offer as i figured i'll save quite a bit since the student ticket into 八角寨 would have already cost me 60yuan according to the staff at the tour centre.

So this is 八角寨. The first thing that greeted me over there was the steps that i'll have to climb.
八角寨 is so named because there are like eight prominent peaks like these over there. These peaks are actually stone formations that resemble snail shells.
Steep steps accompanied by tree-trunk-textured railings.
I came to this bridge that supposedly could only take 3 people at a time,
and the bridge was over this deep valley.
This walkway was kind of set in these giant rock formations.
A viewing spot called "人字天" cause these 3 rocks were leaning towards each other forming the chinese character "人".
The view from an even higher spot.
Intriguing formations. 
I met these group of 6 people from 资源 who were visiting this place too and ended up talking to them for a while. On my descent from the hill, i called the motorcycle uncle so that he can come in and pick me up for another 10yuan. But when i reached the carpark, the group of 资源 people were still there, about to leave on 3 motorcycles and one of them offered to send me directly back to 资源. I rejected him initially cause i've already called the uncle but they were saying that the uncle would try to cheat me and stuff lidat cause according to them, you dun need an admission ticket to visit 八角寨. 

I accepted his offer in the end cause even the souvenir store person was telling me to go with them. And by accepting his offer, i did something even more dangerous than riding pillion on a motorcycle without a helmet, which is riding pillion on a motorcycle without a helmet, with another pillion rider behind me. So the 3 of us were on the bike without helmets, which according to Peter the Norwegian (the angmoh i was talking to in 凤凰), he'll rather bungee jump than do something lidat. It was indeed an experience but it wasn't that bad lar.

And on the way back, the uncle called me quite a few times but i couldn't pick up his call, not that i want to pick up anyway...

A traditional water wheel installed by the river in 资源. Saw quite a few of these wheels in those minority tribe villages later on.
Sunset again.
People happily dancing at the town square at night.

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