Day 2 visit - out to the village and Teochew city

We got a car and driver to bring us around the village and Teochew city on Day 2. For a day trip which started at 10am and ended at 6pm, RMB450 seemed like a reasonable price. Usually a car for a day would cost between RMB500 to RMB700, starting around 8am and ending at around 6pm.

The driver was pretty nice - talkative and sharing some history and information about the places we visited. He is (in my opinion) a pretty rich man - owns three plots of land, does sustainable farming, roast tea leaves and owns a couple of shops. But driving taxi and bringing tourists around town is one of his activities too.

So we went to the villages. The villages are grouped according to the surnames of the families. In other words, for one village, everyone has the same surname. However, given the growth of population in the villages, the boundaries have started to blur. What we saw was all houses and the villages separated by narrow streets. Finally, we reached a village about an hour away from Teochew, the village of Tans.

Here's a photo of the ancestry temple of the village. On the board located at the left of the entrance is a list of names of people who donated to the village.

Some villagers do farming - the pond you see below is used to keep. Water isn't so clean though, perhaps due to the lack of water flow.

After some stretching we moved on to another village. The next village we went to is called 龙湖寨. It's actually a fort from a few centuries back. It's been listed as one of the national heritage sites. Here's the street view.

Scholar's house decorated with a board and some writing on the doors.

View of the river from outside the village.

Yup, this is the taxi driver who brought us around. No, this isn't the shop he own but it's one of the shops in the village.

Temple! Need to pay to enter though.

Now the tourist attractions have QR code. Too bad our phones do not have internet accessibility.

So after visiting the village area, we went to the city for lunch. Do note that you're expected to have lunch with the driver and pay for his lunch even though you've booked him for the day. So RMB450 only includes the driver, car and petrol. Doesn't cover admission charges, meals and other expenses. We also bought some stuff from him, since he sells tea and other stuff. But he is kind enough to give us some guava and potatoes for free. The guava is really nice - crunchy and sweet. Can buy those if you like.

So unfortunately it started raining after lunch. Most of the time was spent chatting with the driver at his place. We stayed for about one and a half hours at his place while waiting for the rain to stop. This is when we get to enjoy Chinese tea and chill lax.

After the rain slowed down, we set off to a few places. It was still drizzling. We went to the Song Bridge - picture below.

And passed by some monuments...

Took some shots of places in the wilderness.. ok maybe not wilderness since we are still in the city.

And that's all for the day.