After a breakfast of noodle soup and eggs for Michele and bacon and eggs for me, we spent the day bike riding in the country. This sounds easier and more idyllic than it was for me: the bike was too little and I hadn't counted on the special anal probe seat. We would ride down a narrow road thinking we were going to be in the boondocks, and come across some tourist facility.

Everywhere we go there are tourists – most of them Chinese. In Yangshuo, there are big, expensive looking hotels with BMW X5s and Mercedes in front, the handsomest store in town is a wedding arranger. It occurred to us that this has been a tourist destination for a thousand years – think of all the Chinese watercolors of this landscape. Years ago the local cormorant fisherman was fishing for a living, now he is putting on a show for tourist for a living (we think, what ever was happening was around the bend in the river).

The landscape here is staggering. It has the same quality as southeastern Utah; they don't look even remotely similar, but every turn in the road bring a new jaw dropping view.

As we rode through the countryside, the farm road turned into a trail

and then dead-ended at a river where we hired a ferry to get across.

And, shockingly enough, this river was full of tourists,

running the rapids, Chinese style.

After the river, we stopped for a late lunch of braised ginger pumpkin and chicken soup with a Li Quan beer. Then a short ride back to the guest house at Moon Hill where we could read about Bo, the Obama's new dog.    -S