BOZHOU MEDICINE MARKET

In Anhui province in the half way from Beijing to Shanghai there is Bozhou. If you ask people in China about it nobody can even recognize that name. In the Lonely Planet Bozhou is described briefly as one of the most eyesore and unplesant places in China. When you come here you just think: what for? Thats right. It is not so easy for foreigners to feel fine here. But there are some points why it is worth to see that weird place.You can travel in China for a long time following touristic routes and never see the real China. Bozhou is the best place to feel that country without any western influences. You can experience a strong culture shock there.In Bozhou there is the biggest medicine market in South East Asia. Thousands merchands come here to buy dryied plants and animals that can be used as a medicine. Streets are covered with colourfull pieces of different herbs and mushrooms. White cotton sacks are full of dried scorpions, snakes, frogs, turtles' shells and many kinds of insects. Even head of a deer or paw of a bear is useful ingredient in chinese medicine.Dirty streets, crowdy markets, roaring and horning tricycles. The air is foggy and dusty. The colours are light, pastels. People desapeare in the mixture of mist and exhaust in the end of the wide streets. Dried stuff from the medicine market gives of a mystic smell calming you down. The bad dream like mysterious atmosphere. Feeling of alienation. Crazy traffic on the streets. Pollution. Fantastic huge sculptures located on every roundabout. You are not on familiar ground here but that weird environment contrasts with incredibly hospitable and friendly people. Every time smiling when you take a photo.It is not so easy to understand that town. I have an impresion that Bozhou was created by some very tallented writer. The close friend of Franz Kafka.I have to come back and read this novel to the end.

Vendors are selling dried stuff.

NI HAO MA!

Foam on the river in the center of Bozhou.

Where is human there is no more place for nature in China.

Forget about silence after bussy day. Night riders are coming.

Street vendors selling barbequed chicken embriyos. It is something between egg and chicken. The view and taste of half fury baby is not so amazing so it is hard to swallow even one of four eggs put on the stick.

The owner of the drus store waiting for customers.

Nice smelly herbs, roots and mushrooms getting dry on the streets of Bozhou.

Dried frogs are use in Chinese medicine to prepare a canned drink. It gives you power and makes you forever young.

Some appetizers make us more funny then hungry.

After pig nose we decided to eat something more serious. It was midnight. We went out and the first street restaurant next to the door of our hotel served the doggy soup. Unfortunatelly it has just finnished. We were really pissed off.