Fenghuang

Fenghuang is a town that's stuck in time,not only did this place still has old buildings intact and well preserved, there were also very little high risers to be seen around. Even the tourist traps seemed a little less sophisticated. At least that's how it seemed it during the day.

This town's richness came from its location. Being on the borders of ethnic minority territories, the place would turn into one giant party every month when the people who "live in the mountains" all around would come in and exchange goods and news with others. In fact, people who are in remote villages still do this now a days and it's called ganji - "going to market". Unfortunately, we did not catch this while we were here.

Gangji's significance has changed since though, instead of "going to town" to get the necessities, most of the young people in rural village have left for work in the city, so ganji is done now a days because it is the last resort for the elderly left to make a living with their handcrafts. 

I also find out soon after that Fenghuang is one of the places in the Province that suffered the most from migration problem; many people, elderly men especially, find themselves unemployed, without a family after their prime time is over, and would die alone in their houses without being discovered for a long time.

Anyways, we walked around the old town after finding ourselves a place to stay for the night waiting to experience a "camp fire party", meant to show tourists like us how they roll when Gangji is in full swing.

Fenghuang actually means Phoenix in Chinese, but with this name, the amount of "Phoenix" items were actually quite little

the ethnic minorities were known for their brews (surprise surprise), they were the best tasting alcohol we've had in China

A traveler's cafe we passed filled with visitor's train tickets, a lot of them were attached with number, friendly or not, we all left our tickets here too

Once dusk came around, we headed out of the town to attend this camp fire party hosted by the Miao people. They performed some dances, drums, and witch crafts tricks with well disguised science. Nevertheless, a lot of shouting and clapping ensued.

this guy put out the torch with his mouth. lol

they eventually went on to "white man burning"

It was all good fun, especially when they burn out Jeremy's forearm hair (no other harm was done) and he received a local bar's voucher ticket.

We returned to the town discovering that as the night rolls around, the entire place is transformed into a night club, every single shop has lights, music and laser flying around everywhere. With the voucher, and the brewskies we got earlier in the day, it's safe to say our night in Fenghuang was pretty colorful...


What's next?

Fenghuang you had us all fooled

who would have guessed

as always, group shot with a new friend we met