The Mud Flats of Xiapu

Xiapu is a county known for its mud flats…

…and its sea food.

Soon after we arrived at our inn on the edge of the city, we walked down to the harbor, where the tide was just coming in.

We hailed a captain and asked for a ride.

He took us with a few other photographers out to the deeper water where the crab traps lay.

The city of Xiapu was much larger than any cities near my home in rural Wisconsin. Still, where we stayed near the edge of town by the harbor, it had a small-town feel. Unlike in the States, we could walk down the streets and look into open-fronted shops to watch people buy groceries, get their hair cut, make pastries, sew.

Fishermen mended their nets.

Children played in the streets, and older people sat and watched the world go by.

In the city somewhere, we bought oranges from a truck.

Early the next morning, we woke to photograph the sunrise over the ocean. Xiapu is a county not high on the list of tourist destinations, but it is popular with photographers. When we reached the harbor, there were many photographers who had the same idea we did and who had got there first.

For all that, the sky was cloudy and obscured any color the sun may have had. A glimpse of it shining from behind a cloud was all the sunrise we were going to get.

Sunrise over, we followed a narrow pathway that wound up the side of a cliff overlooking the sea and the city. Built into the side of cliff were tombs. They had been visible to us from far below when we were out on the boat day before.

The pathway wound up and up and up. At the top of the cliff, we found a shrine.

We had asked the hosts at the inn where we stayed if there was a place we could buy boots so we could go walking out in the mud at low tide. They didn’t know of a place nearby, but they had a pair they were happy to loan us, and they asked the neighbor for another.

We waded out, mud sucking our boots the whole way, trying to stay on the clumps of grass so we wouldn’t go down. Once, I couldn’t pull my foot out and panicked, having visions of being sucked slowly down into the muck, never to return. Chad held out a hand and pulled, and I reached back and grabbed my boot and yanked and—thank God—it came free.

Chad pointed out that I really had nothing to worry about—the crabbers walked up to their thighs in the stuff every day. The worst that could have happened was losing my borrowed boots.

We walked out near enough to this gentleman to get a photo of him bringing in his catch.

We left Xiapu that same afternoon and headed for our Guangzhou, which had been the first and would be the final stop of our journey.