The almighty Cloud has, unfortunately, let us down. In lieu of saving and securing photos sent off into the supernatural ether, it has decided that removing them instead was the better option. As a result, this particularly entry will have to rely on the strength of my ability as a writer to describe a scene. For this, I apologize.

We left Shenzhen in the early morning, speeding off to Guangzhou on the real bullet train, a journey taking only 15 minutes instead of the near hour that the previous fast train needed to go end to end. A brief transfer passed and soon we were speeding through the Chinese countryside, making our way northeast. Our destination was the village of Likeng, a picturesque riverside town nested in between forest hills. I remain amazed at the spread of bullet trains in China and their ability to collapse distances, even in a country so large. I am less impressed by manners on board said trains, and I lamented to Hannah that we are missing something by not being on the night train…itself a singular experience. At any rate though, it was only a few hours to our transfer point. The train station was mobbed with cab drivers who flocked to the two foreigners. Ignore them. Find the bus. Don’t say anything. A short pair of rides later, and after an impromptu and completely unexplained bus-to-bus transfer, we reached the edge of Likeng. At least the highway edge where the road led down to the village. We quickly fell in with a woman who was keen to let our her upstairs rooms and after some mild haggling we had agreed on a price.

The village is essentially an elongated Y-shape, with a small river running through it from (and to) the fields beyond. The main square, a few dozen metres away from our second floor balcony, was the scene of a nightly ritual wherein two grown men chased a group of ducklings into a wooden basket for safekeeping. Otherwise, they held the square during the day. Next year, perhaps this ritual will be capitalized upon and given a more formal ticketing procedure.

Surrounding the village were small farm plots, linked by a haphazard network of stone paths. Rice paddies glittered in the sun and we spent our slow walks touring through them, doing our best to guess at the vegetables being grown. In the irrigation canals at the day’s end the water buffalo would be tied, cooling down from the humidity and basking in the mud churned up underfoot. We ate well, the entire village being an unintentional farm-to-table movement prepared fresh to order. Mostly these were the front rooms of homes, with a gas grill or two linked to propane tanks, and a pair of grandparents watching dramas on TV until called into action. This was most evident when a chicken dish was ordered and the husband (a man’s job, it seems) wearily rose to continue smoking while killing, gutting, and plucking the bird. At this point, it entered the woman’s domestic sphere, and the wife would take responsibility for the butchering.

Likeng was our base, with a few excursions planned to a nearby post road, other villages, and a night near Huangshan, one of the premier mountain destinations of China. Indeed, it received the AAAAA designation, so judge that for whatever it is worth. Instead of these outings however we were hemmed in by overcast weather, rain, and skies that sank behind the thick low cloud cover. We elected to instead take the time in Likeng instead of donning ponchos to stare at clouds. We spent days watching the coming and goings of the tour bus groups, disgorging people through the village gates, hawking overpriced curios, and then emptying out at sunset, where the quiet pace of life resumes. We would find cold bottles of Tsingtao at the shop and have short conversations with the locals. This was my chance to score points with my rusty Mandarin.

Lest the village seem too idyllic, don’t forget the wafts of manure, the dogs running through the streets, or the lack of young adults. Like many villages, the young have left, a missing generation who have left for the big cities to make their fortune. Hannah experienced her first leech bite and several dozen mosquito bites. I was thankful that she is a magnet for the tiny bloodsuckers, who generally left me alone. We left from Likeng after several days, hitching a ride back to the train station from a nice man with a van, who gave us an honest price and discussed the latest NBA results.

To better impart the village flavour, I also leave below a list compiled by Hannah, entitled “Things I saw the Likeng Village canal used for”.

• washing clothes
• rinsing a mop
• cleaning a freshly butchered chicken
• sharpening knives
• washing vegetables
• washing bedsheets
• fishing for carp
• a waterway for small boats transporting goods
• fish storage (in submerged crates)
• dumping excess water or cooking liquids
• spitting in
• ducklings and goslings to play in.