I am sorry that I did not show you the most beautiful Xiapu. The Xiapu in my travelogue was a failure. You can directly search Xiapu on Baidu Images to see if you like this place. This place is really different from what you imagine. This place is beautiful.
It was so cold on New Year’s Day. According to the weather forecast, it snowed in northern and western Fujian. I set my alarm clock for six o’clock. I quickly put on my down jacket, scarf, and snow boots (I never got to use this outfit), went out, and the sky was just getting light.
Bailukeng
After getting on the highway, I took out my phone for navigation, but I couldn’t find the village name I saw online (I found out later that I wrote Shangshui as Baishui, oh my god!), I was uneasy and could only go to a She village called Bailukeng according to Baidu’s guidance, hoping it wouldn’t disappoint me.
More than 300 kilometers away, it was almost noon when I got off the highway. I drove towards Bailukeng according to my phone’s navigation. The mountain road had 18 bends, narrow and difficult for two cars to pass each other.
The most planted on the roadside were sweet potatoes and cauliflower. I loved everything I saw. I wanted to buy sweet potatoes, cauliflower, free-range chickens and ducks, and the coconuts on the side of the road. I comforted him that if we didn’t see any good scenery, we could just come to buy agricultural products.
The road was endless. Only someone like me, who is half crazy, could think of coming to this place. They kept asking me, logically speaking, we should have seen tourist buses now, why is it getting more and more deserted? I secretly smiled and didn’t say anything.
Finally, we arrived in Bailukeng. I stopped a passing villager and asked: Where is Bailu Village? Go straight! Is there a She village? Yes! Is it beautiful? Beautiful! A decisive answer!
Into the village! At this moment, something bad happened. I found that my car had a flat tire. I had to find a place to stop and change the tire. I asked people around to find out where to see the She ethnic customs.
The old people were all basking in the sun in front of their doors, with braziers in their hands. They said that all the young people had gone out to work. In the end, I found out that there was not a single person wearing traditional She clothing in the village. There was only one old house left, and it was being repaired. They allowed us to go in and take a look, but they warned us that there was nothing to see inside and suggested that we go to Banyuecun, where there were many old houses. Banyuecun, what a beautiful name!
The dilapidated old house. We wandered around for a while, but we didn’t see anyone. There was a row of dim rooms on the wooden stairs upstairs. It felt like a perfect place to shoot a horror film.
Banyuecun
After changing the tire with great effort, we turned around and went to Banyuecun.
The ancestral hall was at the entrance of the village, half hidden behind a huge old tree. What kind of tree is this? We studied it for a while, but couldn’t figure it out. It was dark and gloomy inside, forgive me for using this word.
The villagers were very friendly and pointed us in the direction of the She traditional houses. There were actually not many old houses left, and they were also in a state of disrepair. A short section of ancient city wall looked like it was newly built, with several villagers sitting idly on it.
The walls were made of yellow mud, and a pomelo tree stuck out its neck, with a few unripe fruits hanging from it.
After walking around casually, it was already one or two in the afternoon. We hadn’t eaten lunch yet and hadn’t seen anything that set this minority group apart from our vast Han compatriots.
Black and white Beiji Village
Our next target was Beiji Village, where people were taking photos of the mudflats on the Internet. We couldn’t even pronounce the name of this village, not sure if it was accurate.
We saw a small restaurant on the way and stopped to have a bowl of rice noodle soup each, and we also asked the owner about the specific location. The owner said that people come here every morning at 5:00 to wait for the sunrise. Of course, we didn’t have the luck to see the sunrise at sea. The sky was gloomy and even the slightest rays of the setting sun were stingy.
A few wooden boats stranded on the shallows reminded us that we had reached our destination (of course, there was a prominent slogan in the village “Long live Chairman Mao”, which also told me that this road was correct).
Although it wasn’t the best time to shoot the sunrise, there were still quite a few photographers setting up their tripods.
The mudflats in Beiji are indeed beautiful. As a layman, I just wanted to see the excitement. At the time, I didn’t know what was planted or farmed in the sea. I asked later and found out it was seaweed. A vast expanse stretching all the way to the horizon, the same size, the same layout, awe-inspiring.
The sun also cooperated and showed a ray of light, reflecting off the rows of bamboo poles on the sea surface, revealing a golden sheen.
There was a group of young people barbecuing by the sea, and we also went down to the beach.
As we were leaving, the sun peeked out from behind the clouds, showing us half its face as a farewell. To show respect for the old man’s good intentions, despite the mud on the mudflats, I stumbled and staggered onto the broken wooden boat to let her take a picture of me.
I didn’t take a single satisfactory photo on this trip, mainly because my new haircut recently went perfectly with the down jacket I wore that day. It was extremely short, small, and unfashionable, which was embarrassing!
When I saw the pictures I took in Xiapu, I almost cried. The moving beauty was ruined in my hands. The weather was bad, the time was wrong, there was no changing sunlight, and Xiapu was just black and white.
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