
Another thrilling and surreal weekend in the great hinterland, this time in a place I’d never been, Yengdak (Yingde), a little under four hours’ train trip from Shenzhen.
I travelled with P, a tall Australian man whom people, unfortunately but not unexpectedly, mistook for my husband. He certainly knows how to say “He’s my cousin! Spread it around!” in Cantonese now, as this became my war cry since the little town held an unusually high percentage of China Drool (Beautiful Dudes.)

Here’s the lobby of the best (and only?) hotel in town, the Conch. Normal rooms: 360 yuan. Suites: 480. Last Saturday was an auspicious day to get married, and the hotel was crawling with drunk wedding guests, one of whom came running towards us, gripped our hands and shook them while he went on about how he loved foreigners. All deep purple face, dark brown teeth and with a cloud of bai jiu (Chinese rice wine) wafting about him, he pulled me to him and kissed me. And don’t you think he jumped up on P and started kissing him too. Talk about good omen!

You could easily cross the town on foot in a few hours, and everywhere was covered in a red carpet of fire cracker debris because of the aforementioned weddings. We started worrying that the whole town would be busy at wedding parties so there would be no night life, but not only was the biggest, best (and only?) club in town right in our own hotel, it was also full of beautiful dudes and ‘hostesses.”

But I have to say, if you’ve come to the Conch Club for the good conversation, you may want to look elsewhere. All conversation had to be written down as the thundering drums and bass tore through your cortex like a team of insane combine harvesters and settled in your spine where they proceeded to shake all your moorings loose. We thought we were saved when this guy came and invited us to a private party upstairs because his wife had seen us on the train where I had commented favourably on her good looking baby (son, naturally) and come to the conclusion that we were “kind people.”
She was now at home guarding the baby while her husband was out trying to pick up women wife had spotted earlier … a new form of modern living? It turned out the private party, full of whores, was even louder than the club because of the inevitable karaoke. But free!


As well as having fantastic hovelage (picturesque hovels), rivers, canals and lakes, the town was also full of greenery in the shape of little patches of vegetable plots spread all over the town and in the most built-up areas. And most of all: Instead of little insect-like, underbite-sporting, nasty little yappy dogs that you just want to stomp on, Yengdak is full of real-sized, well kept, friendly dogs who, like their owners, love foreigners and like nothing better than jumping up and kissing them.

Uber-town! Groovy! Guangdong - your closest holiday destination!
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