Because we are trying to stay loose, we are spending alot of time on logistics – and everything doesn't always work out. We had expected to leave Yangshuo a day earlier but we couldn't get train tickets from Liuzhou to Zhangjiajie on the day we wanted to leave. So we spent a day hanging out, taking portraits of some of the women working at the hotel and watching the locals staring into space.

In the late afternoon, we climbed the local star attraction – the moon palace at Moon Hill – which is an arch in the mountain overlooking the valley.

Climbing a to a star attraction in China is really walking up a paved path. But, in this case a paved path that does go on for a good bit and one that gets steep at the end.

At the end, we got above the arch

and had an impressive view.

-S

The second half of our big activity day was a trip on the Li River. There are all kinds of options from a full day trip on a fairly large boat from Guilin down to Yangshuo to an 1/2 hour trip from Yangshuo to Yangshuo. In our quest for information on Wulingyaun, we came across the only travel agent (here) who knew how to get there.

Sort of in passing, we decided to to go on a "bamboo raft" trip on one of the most famous parts of the river; the Xingping Town area. It was already pretty late in the day, after cooking school and lunch, so we got our stuff together and took a local  bus to Xingping. It is about an hour trip, past miles of farms and the usual surreal landscape.

At Xingping, we get on the river on our "bamboo raft". On the Li, the bamboo is really a set of ten metal tubes that look like bamboo including the slight taper and the ridges; the boatmen use outboard motors rather than poles which is a good thing because the river is big, fast, and strong.

Almost every hill seems to have a name – sort of like Yosemite. One of the most famous, of which we have no idea of the name, is on the 20 yuan bill, and a very popular location for weddings. As you can see here, there are several lucky couples checking out the location.

Along the river there are flocks of ducks that we thing are domestic ducks just out for an outing. They are great fun to watch, sort of popping out of the water to shake out their tail feathers. Ducks really are intrinsically funny animals to watch.

Along both sides of the river, the area is pretty wild, which is one of the most surprising things about China; how much of it is still wild. I guess it is a result of being wet and hot, if not outright tropical, so everything grows quickly.

Also, the farming seems to be in harmony with nature. Chickens are running around the farms eating the bugs, the irrigation ponds are also carp ponds, on the side of the fields are little clumps of mint and basil. This is not like the Italian landscape where the Romans cut down all the trees two thousand years ago for their hot baths. (From what I've read, The Romans were as addicted to wood as we are to oil – finally denuding Italy and north Africa and then fighting the Germans for their forests.)

Anyway, at one of the most famous hills (something like "seven horses jumping"),

we turned around and went back down river as the sun was setting.

The boatmen at Xingping were wrapping up the day, 

and we got on a local bus for the trip back to Yangshuo. But we were early, so we sat and watched the bus driver, the conductor, and a few regulars play cards to pass the time. All the buses seem to have a flat table over the engine which makes a great place to put packages or play cards.

A long day that ended with our first Kung Pao chicken since we have been in China.

-S

Some of this may be repetition from Steve's post, but I wanted to add my own comments here.

Digital photography is an interesting thing. We were standing outside the market and I was aware that that everyone coming and going on bicycle carts was different than it was at home, but it didn't really strike me as "exotic" until I looked at the display in my camera (chimping as Steve calls it).

But when we entered the market and saw all the plastic bowls of eels, frogs, snails, and unrecognizable squirming things, then I really knew I wasn't at the farmer's market at home.

Some of the food was ready to eat,

but mostly the market was filled with people shopping for what they were going to cook that day, which was what we supposed to be there to do. (Actually, they had done the shopping for us already, we were just shown everything we would be using in our class). What was great about this, is that I frequently go to 99 Ranch or Marina Foods at home and have no idea what many of the produce items are, so I took the opportunity to ask lots of questions about what things are while Steve focused on taking pictures ( you can see his blue jacket in the middle of all this):

Then we went to a small village where the cooking school was located.

The first item we prepared was steamed chicken:

The complete menu was:

• egg wrapped dumplings
• steamed chicken with mushroom
• eggplant with soy and oyster sauce
• stir fried pork with vegetables and oyster sauce
• green vegetables with garlic.

Today was going to be a nice, slow, layover day and it turned out to be sort of a resort high activity day. This whole area is sort of like a resort with all kinds of supervised activities. We started out going to cooking school which started out with a trip to the local market. I think for shock value as much as anything. And the market is sort of shocking – it is like a giant, very diverse, farmers market. The quality of the food looks great (although I am not much of a judge on what high quality dog meat looks like). Anything you can think of is for sale here (or, at least, anything I can think of).

From fresh water eels to eggplants,

chickens, rabbits, and doves.

Then it was off to a village out of town where we watch a demo

and cooked our own lunch 

and ate it outside with a view that is becoming normal.

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