What's Up Al ? 遊記隨筆 生活點滴

Yeh - 25 KM in a day ! Well, we actually started the day off in a most relaxing style by waving down a friendly old man in his three wheel electric mobile, which looked more like a rather large size lantern and we barely fitted in at the back. He drove almost at full power, at a relatively quiet and fast pace of 10KM/hour, up north to our intended destination of Fu Li Bridge (富里橋), a still-functional bridge built in the Ming Dynasty (about 600 hundred years ago). The scene at the bridge was a gem of a photographic opportunity at 9 AM in the morning as the sun shone at the right angle, the bridge drew a perfect reflection off the Yu Long River (遇龍河) and there were only two other passers-by; besides, we enjoyed the brisk fresh air during our short walk to reach there. We said goodbye to the charming old man and started walking down south along the river, where we came across endless karst formations set amongst the rural villages with local farmers going about their daily lives of cattle-feeding, working the fields, cutting and pruning the local well-known fruit of kumquat, also known as golden tangerine (金桔), without a care to the on-looking outsiders. A friendly local man told us that almost every family in the area had a front or back garden planted with the famous fruit and that kumquat, with its delicious tastes and medicinal properties, had been a major revenue for them for years, especially nowadays, the farmers could sell them directly over the Internet ! My word, times are changing !
Having had a satisfying big lunch at the Yu Long Bridge (遇龍橋), overlooking tourists busying themselves with boarding and disembarking the wooden rafts, we soldiered on, encouraged by more and more jaw-dropping scenery. We passed through quaint sleepy villages, lonely fishermen and hard working village ladies, time just flew and we did not feel the tiredness our legs were trying to convey. Yu Long River ran parallel to its more famous and larger neighbour of Li River (灕江), the local government had great plans for Yu Long and had built a web of inter-linking bridges, cycling paths and paved country roads to connect the river to other scenic parts of this area which included the Ten Mile Picture Gallery (十里畫廊), the Number One Scholar Route (狀元步道) and the Moon Hill (月亮山); no wonder we could just walk and walk, seemingly without an end point ! Luckily, having clicked our camera with 5% battery left, our legs so tired that our knees almost hit the floor, we came across a restaurant with a welcoming buffet decked out at the front and we just pigged ourselves silly before walking the last few kilometers to a much needed soothing hot shower !