Benxi Water Caves

We, Pavol and I, were asking our interpreter last week, where can we go in one a day trip that isn't too expensive but is unique? She took us down to a local travel agency and helped us sign up for a trip to Benxi. Luckily the tour agency also had an agent that spoken fairly good English, and they offered to send her with us for 100 RMB, split between Pavol and me. Total cost of the trip around 300RMB, which is a little less than $50, including lunch and the show. Thank God we had her too otherwise we would have been totally lost. Benxi is a city about 2hrs away by car (can't exactly remember the distance and google maps is unhelpful in China) that is famous for its underground river aka water cave and its maple trees. Despite the extremely large "steel plant" near Benxi the park surrounding the water caves was very pretty and even fairly clean. We were lucky to get a nice bright blue sky (a rarity in china) and cooler temperatures to explore the park in. First thing we did was tour the water cave, then we went to the museum, and then we had lunch with all of the people who came with us. Despite not knowing a lick of English they were very nice and extremely hospitable. This eventually led to me eating a salted fish, whole, all of it, no spitting out bones or anything, because they send the plate your way and then watch to make sure you take and eat some of everything. It wasn't so bad...anyway after lunch we headed down for the show. The pictures on flickr/facebook tell most of the story, except for the ladyboy part.

Okay, so the tour guide talked us into going to the show and wouldn't really take no for an answer so we went. Before the show the best our interpreter could do was, "Do you know ladyboy, is a very beautiful boy singing" or something close to that. Thankfully Pavol had seen a show before and explained to me, basically they are cross-dressing and/or possibly transvestite and/or gay boys performing in public. I consulted Wikipedia and he was pretty much right. It was very weird, despite knowing they are in fact male it is pretty hard to tell with all of the make-up on, but the Adam's Apple generally gives it away. Also both of them were pretty terrible singers. Anyway I wasn't really sure what the etiquette was for taking pictures during the show so I only took one, and it isn't very good. The crocodile part of the show was way more awesome and the pictures do tell that whole story. Those guys are insane, I can't figure out why those animals didn't remove any limbs, they certainly were close enough. The whole experience was pretty cool, wish I could have gotten better pictures of inside the cave but I will survive. The whole day was a pretty awesome experience it really let you see some of China's natural beauty, as opposed to all of the industry we see during the week.