Fuyang’s my birth city, although I now live in Canada.

We even have a Zhong Shan Gongyuan in Chicago too.

What exactly were you doing in Fuyang if you don’t mind me asking?

In terms of resouces the area is very rich in coal and it makes me think that areas that are rich in natural resources often have a lower average level per head of GDP than “poor” areas with no resources that have better government.

From Hefei we traveled to Fuyang and then to Taihe (upcomming post), basically going from capital city (省会) to regular city (城市) to county/town (县城). At each successive level the people were less and less used to seeing foreigners, and thus more surprised, curious, and sometimes suspicious. The real benefit (communication wise) of traveling to these kinds of places is that everybody wants to talk to you and ask you a zillion personal questions about yourself and your home country. Realistically speaking, in a place like Fuyang, for most of the locals I was probably the first Westerner with whom they had ever been able to converse with.

This of course then creates a communication environment where I can then comfortably ask a bunch of questions about them without it being awkward, and it really facilitates for a lot of mutual understanding.

As for the accommodations, we stayed in a decent (stress the word ‘decent’) hotel, with private bathroom and heat for 60 RMB for the night. We had originally been planning to stay in a 招待所 (dorm style guesthouse) for 15 RMB per person, however it was an unusually cold night, and the 招待所 did not have heat.

The following morning we went to Taihe, but took the last bus back to Fuyang that evening, so we could sleep on the overnight train to Nanjing.

From my travels I’ve generally found that a) you can find just about any level of accommodation (assuming you aren’t expecting a Ritz Carlton) virtually anywhere in China as long as you know how to read the signs and b) It’s always much easier if you don’t book anything in advance (assuming you aren’t traveling during a holiday). Although most of the hotels were more on the dingy side, I’m sure we could have found a 500 RMB 5-star hotel in Fuyang if that was what we were looking for. And at the same time, you can find dirt cheap 招待所’s even in an expensive city like Shanghai.