The next morning, I got to the bus terminus by hiring a motorbike taxi, riding pillion for about half an hour in the early morning to catch the first bus out. It was lovely watching the countryside wake up, seeing villagers on their way to the fields and catching fleeting glimpses of the first stalls to open in the little towns dotting the winding road. The first stalls were invariably meat stalls taking advantage of the cool morning to quickly sell their stock before it went bad in the fierce heat of the day.
And at yet another chaotic town junction masquerading as a bus terminus, I pressed onwards.
But not before sampling some local breakfast. Here, breakfast started looking slightly familiar yet not quite the same. These fat rice noodles were called laoshu ban or mouse noodles, most likely named after mouse tails. These tasted somewhat like the Singaporean laoshu fen but were of course much more rustic (a euphemism for “coarse”). The topping was pretty normal, pork balls and minced pork together. Of course, this isn’t the regular breakfast as I’d upsized it by adding more meat balls. Normal people have only noodles and a tiny sprinkling of minced meat on top.
Having fortified myself with Hakka msg-laden noodles, I was ready to head into Teochew territory for more msg-laden food.