I had a fantastic trip to rural China during Chinese New Year with a friend. We made Nanjie in Guangning county, a medium size town 160kms north of Guangzhou, our home base and travelled around the area for 6 days. Though Nanjie is relatively laid back and dirty city, the area around it is a beautiful hinterland with landscape dotted by bamboo trees, vast valleys and lush green mountains. Rivers flow in valley, making it really a romantic place to visit.

As I went there during Chinese New Year, the most enthusiastically celebrated holiday in China, everyone was in cheerful mood. There were red decorations everywhere and noise of firecrackers and fireworks was always heard, be it 2 in the morning or 4 in the afternoon. I went to so many places, my friend’s various relatives’ homes for lunches and dinners and received so many lai see (red packets containing money Chinese give to young / unmarried / juniors on special occasions). Of course, I had to give lai see to kids I met too!

A lonely bicycle rider in Shangeng village, 30 kms west of Nanjie

And while everyone was doing it, I tried the fireworks at least twice too. Man it was fun! Chinese have always been good at gun powder stuff and I believe they still make best and most economic fireworks. The tiny boxes of fireworks (costing about RMB 150-400 / USD 20 - 50 each, depending on size) packed in colorful wraps can fill the sky with beautiful lights and make so much noise that it can be heard miles away.

For me, it was first time to celebrate Chinese New Year, in China, with Chinese style. What a wonderful experience it was.

 Email This Post
This entry was posted on Thursday, March 1st, 2007 at 8:23 pm and is filed under China, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.