Lingering in Daxu Ancient Town
2010-04-30China travel Guide
If you think Guilin scenery is more natural, no more cultural or historical, there is a place which you must see. It is Daxu Ancient Town, which is located to the southwest of Guilin, on shore of the Li River. It takes about 40 minuets by driving from Guilin. So, many Guilin citizens like to diver car to enjoy weekend in this area. In the mean time, Daxu town now is a big town in Guilin area, and its market is very famous, many people just go to Daxu town on purpose during market time. But it is a little hard for me to count the date, as the market date is based on Chinese lunar calendar. P.S.: In Chinese, Xu means local market, so, Daxu means big local market, very cute name for the ancient town.
Daxu is an ancient and historical town with well preserved traditional Chinese architectures and the wandering stone-paved streets. Very perfect to enjoy leisure time with a camera, it is the best place to take photography. The ancient part of Daxu town is not big, only consisted of one main street, it is parallel with the Li River. At the entrance of ancient town, you will find some old grandpa or grandma selling their staff, although the staff do not cost too much, the grandpa or grandma can not earn too much money, they are all involved and enjoyable. From their faces, I can learn peace and satisfaction. Going ahead, you will arrive at the central point of the street. I highly suggest you turn left, it is more interesting, and you will find many shops and a famous bridge-Wanshou Bridge( Longevity Bridge). The local people's life is just simple and slow, it seems they are living in a different world called Shangri-la. When you are here, you can not help slowing down yourself, I love this feeling.
Lingering in the town, many interesting things are full of your eyes, you can find some special shops which you definitely can not find in big city, such as Chinese herb pharmacy, rice wine factory, local farmer's painting house, temple, etc. And you will also find many old men sitting or resting on the street, many children playing. Then you would be very curious, why there are no young people. Actually, now in most Chinese villages, many young people do not want to do farming, just go to big city hunting jobs, then leave old men and children staying at home. I think it is a problem for the continuable development of Chinese villages and agriculture, hopefully the generation of young people could come back home and love their hometown's life, they finally belong to this place.
By the way, there is a small island facing the ancient town which is named Maozhou Island, people need to take the ferry boat to the island. On the island, you can eat local flavor food, even you can pick the fresh strawberries personally, it is really good practice, and I have to say the fresh strawberries are very sweet and juicy.
Once you are in Guilin, if your time permits, Daxu ancient town is very worthy to discover, here you can find real Chinese people and Chinese village life. You can also shoot the best photos.
