rice terraces, yuanyang, southern china
chinese 'hani' baby (indigenous southern chinese)
ploughing paddy for new seasons rice
in front of military centre (sign says no photos..)
tiger leaping gorge
tiger leaping gorge track 
lijiang waterways
blackdragon pool, with jade dragon mountain behind
5 arch bridge in black dragon pool 
water buffalo, jangshou
farmers bike, jangshou
lijing river (i think), jangshou
elephant rock, guilin
farmers house/guesthouse dragonbone rice terraces, near guilin 
me and my ecstatic new wife..
pagodas in guilin 
revolutionary couple in fancy dress, fengyuang 
chinese opera, fengyuang
5 star living, yichang
riverside houses, fengyuang
flattened pigs head, pheasant
chinese delicacies, a (small) whole bbq chicken
some new boat friends 
'little' 3 gorges
woman bursting into some chinese folk singing, evidently impressed by nature
first bend into gorge, on chinese 20 yuan billhello everyone,
well im preparing for another long email, so get a cup of tea!
as usual sorry for gramatical errors and punctuation misshaps!
I think I left off in Datong, waiting for the train to Xi'an, if I didnt, well too bad..We arrived early in the morning, really sunny and considerably warmer than the north, where it seemed to be a little more like it was heading quickly into winter, and after 3 weeks of coldish weather, we were glad to be able to just wear t-shirts. We ended up just exploring the old town here, which has a really interesting muslim quarter, a maze of old street-vendors and restaurants, and had an amazing spicy noodle soup for lunch, which was of course dirt cheap, but tasted unbelievable! Because of the silk road back in the days, Xi'an was one of the first 'million cities', so there was plenty of old stuff to see, ancient pagoda's and mosques etc and although it's very developed and now a massive city of 4.5 million people, it seemed to hold on to the old -town charm never-the-less. The next day we took a local bus out to see the terracotta warriors. (one of my 'to-do' things, and leona bravely tagged along!) I guess if youre not into archealogical things, its not for you, but it was amazing. There were 3 large rooms/hangars, all part of a burial chamber for one of the first (very evil) chinese emperors, who wanted a massive army of warriors, archers, crossbowmen, horses and chariots to carry him into the afterlife, to protect him. There is also another site 2km away, where he has his actual burial place which is also a few square kms filled with more day to day life articles, household 'appliances' etc. he even buried live horses, and the people who helped design and make the pits, to keep the site a secret from vandals and robbers. pretty harsh. but the pits themsleves were pretty huge, i think the main one is about 6000 square metres, filled with ceramic soldiers, many destroyed, but still hundreds in tact. each soldier has different facial features, so that not one single warrior is alike. all are equipped with the matching headware, clothes and even the tread on the shoes are different according to rank and file. evidently the emperor had planned the grave sites since he was 7 years old, and took almost 30 years to make, and was discovered in the 70's by some farmers drilling a well. pretty lucky find id say..anyway i was blown away, and even leona whos not normally impressed by ruins etc, seemed to be suitably wide-eyed.
The same evening we took the bus back to town, as we were catching another train down to chongqing, the starting point of river cruises up the yangtze. We arrived at the station and took a cab into the city. I tell you ive never seen so many housing estate, high rises- unbelivable. The area has about 35 million people living here, so space seems to be limited, so theyve just built and built, higher and higher. somehow it was impressive, even more so because the weather was shit, drisling and grey as concrete, as far as the eye could see everything was surrounded by low lying pollution/fog/rain. Its also quite hilly there, so some roads and the high rises on them dissapeared into the fog. I think its quite often grey and cloudy here, and also quite humid.
Chongqing is also famous for its fiery 'hot-pots', a sort of incredibly spicy bowl, a mix of boiling water, oil and spices, were you dunk all sorts of veggies and meats into this inferno, pausing only to cool it all off with beer. unfortunately the place we found didnt seem to excell at hot-pots, and we had already tried one in datong which was considerably better. but the experience was great anyway, and as everything was in chinese, i got out the phrase book to choose stufff, and in the end i went back into the kitchen and pointed out what i wanted to have. maybe not such a good thing to have done, as the kitchen had of course seen better days, and i reckon in china its best only to see you food after its cooked, not before! anyway, we didnt have a problem with our stomachs afterwards, so all was well.we were to take a boat up the yantze to the 3 gorges, and also the 'mini' 3 gorges. originally we wanted only a 2 night trip because we thought the weather wouldnt allow us to see that much anyway. unfortunately the guy who organized it put us by 'accident' on the 3 night trip, which meant we spent a full day ploughing up stream in some decidedly unromantic and down right boring landscape, in the doom and gloom, passing under several massive bridges, and very large factories(until we got to some temple in the evening where we had some great food). that was pretty much the highlight of the first day. it seems the 3 gorges area and river, and the development of it is a engineers dream, and an ecologists nightmare. the amount of buliding (infrastructure, dams, factories) on this rocky, steep terrain is staggering, and it must be very challenging to build there, especially on the scale that theyre building. as we had left chongqing harbour the previous evening in the gloom, there was nothing to do but have a few beers on board, and admire the lights and humongous new theatre on the way out of the harbour, amid 100's of very excited chinese tourists rushing around like mad. i thought to myself, this could be a long trip..thank god but the 2nd day, the day we went through the first gorge, the weather had cleared up enough for us to be able to see relatively clearly. we could tell something was going to happen, as after slinging down breakfast all the other tourists clammered to the front deck of the boat and set up shop in anticipation. well, as we now couldnt see anything, we joined the hordes, and after half an hour or so, the massive bluff came into sight. that bluff was worth the trip alone, it was a massive gorge rising maybe 500 metres on one side (that maybe a wrong estimate, i cant remember), the river was maye 70 metres wide, and the other side another bluff of about the same height. as we passed through we felt rather small. it was quite funny, as on the chinese 10 yuan note, there's a drawing of this gorge. so pretty much all the chinese were holding up their 10 yuan bills beside their faces and smiling away while husbands dilligently took photos, with of course the gorge behind them. the scenery was much better through here, very mountainous, all plunging into the water, small villages or lonely houses dotted around the shoreline. Having past through there, we were then sheparded hectically off the boat (hectic seems the only word to use when amonst a chinese tour group), to smaller boats to take us up the 'mini' 3 gorges. Although not so high as the first gorge, the river here was much narrower, and we both thought more beautiful, as one mountain range was lost into another. The villages were cuter and we could get closer views of them, until we reached another point, where we were bussled once more off the middle sized boat, onto smaller boats, to go further up the river. It was really nice, with ancient rock formations, huge bamboo forests, and we also saw a few monkeys hopping around. The scenery here was amazing, the only problem being, (which made it overall a little dissapointing), was the number of other tourists. In such a place of natural beauty, you really want to be alone with your thoughts, as it was, we had from start to finish a running commentary at about 3000 decibels, describing this and that. of course in chinese, so i dont know what was so exciting to be talking the whole time, at the end of the day its just rocks!
The last day was rather forced upon us to go to the dam, and visit 'the magnificent and spendorous 3 gorges dam' (as it was described at the entrance). well, it was big. very big. a 5 story boat lock, to transport the boats up and down from one part to the other, and something like 2.5 km long. grey, concrete and rocks, with shit loads of water behind it, something like over a billion cubic tonnes of water (exageration maybe..)..if youre into engineering, quite an accomplishment, which took over 10 years to make, and still not quite finished. we were shoved from one bus to another, one security check to another, (with constant commentary), so it was quite exhausting. only until the memorial park opposite, (where old equipment and 'stuff' like cranes and other 'fascinating' features used during the dams making are on display), did we have some respite from the chaotic tour.from there we took another bus to yichang, a rather ugly town where we had a day to wander around in before catching a night train, so we checked into a cheap hotel first to relax a bit. yichang, famous only for its 5000 or more brothels, is also right in the firing line of the dam, should it burst or collapse, the whole town of over a million would be wiped out within half an hour. so it was quite nice to get out of there, quickly!
the next stop was fenghuang, a small river town in hunan province, if you look at a map right in the middle of the south of the country. It was really cute here, red hanging lanterns on old houses (old-looking, most of them were probably renovated), all stuffed along the shoreline, an old town wall with 3 towers, small wooden bridges to cross the river by foot, and cute higgledy-piggeldy backstreets, bussling with food and local treats. a little touristy as always, but by now we were used to the throngs of people, and the trinkets on offer, but the atmosphere here was much more relaxed and chilled. we stayed right on the river, a cheap local place with a balcony over-looking the river, where we sat and watched nightfall close in. Night-time here was exactly the paradox of calm and chilled. every little corner throbbed with really bad, loud techno and kareoke (chinese are massive fans), and the music blasted out from the whole river front, a little like mallorca, chinese style! but it started early and finished early so it wasnt too bad. The other interesting thing about this town was the food. well, nothing for animal lovers and vegetarians here. pretty gross, and inhumane for the many different types of fish, crabs, (all swiming live around in dirty buckets) chickens, roosters, hornet nests, snakes, turtles, geese, frogs, grubs, squashed, dried and hammered flat pigs faces (they looked very weird), a disgusting beaver-like bamboo rat, with massive front teeth, which whenever you came close it'd hiss and jump around in its tiny cage. well, it was a literal zoo of disgusting animals, all to eat and all looking miserable and neglected. we ate pizza that night.
we left fenguang and took another shorter train to sanjiang, which was just a pass-through town for us. Unfortunatley, the train arrived in the pitch black and rainy north train-station at 2 in the morning, at a station, (little did we know) about 10kms away from anything. so after having to get off the train, in the middle of the train tracks (the platform being 20 metres long, our train 200), we had to think what to do. there was nothing there, the rain was getting heavier, and our torch didnt lead us to anywhere of great hope. no street lights, no station hotels or anything. The idea was to catch a short bus through to Guilin, (another, larger and more intersting city 4 hours away), but the buses didnt start to leave until 7 in the morning, from the bus station, where-ever that was. so the only option would be wait in the tiny waiting room until day light, and see if we could get someone to take us to the bus station. Luckily, some other chinese tourists had had the same idea as us, and had also got off the train here, and wanted to head into town and get a little sleep before heading on their way. with a little sign language that we wanted to do the same, they started knocking on doors, and managed to arrange a mini bus into town, to a hotel, where we finally got some sleep. They were really nice and couldnt speak a word of english, but just took us under their wing, and led us to a comfortable, dirt cheap room (with shower! we needed it!), right next to the bus station. of course from all the excitement, it took a while to get to sleep! We arrived in Guilin, a largish town, famous for its karst limestone geological structures, mountains of rock that bascially thrust themsleves out of nothing 150 metres in the air, and look basically like large anthills.
But the whole of this province is covered in these 'stuctures', and they ghost into the distance for miles and miles, getting lost in clouds of haze and pollution. These mounds are dotted all around the city, and all have small temples and look-out points on them, so before the sun went down, we climbed up one to get a view of the landscape. it was pretty nice but the gloom hindered the distance you could see, but with the hills reaching far back into the distant gloom, it was still nice to look at. Guilin is also the base point for many other sights in the region, where we were going to go, and the next day we headed to the dragonbone rice terraces, about 2.5 hours away from the city. The fields, about 800 years old, perched on top of a mountain range, are an argricultural masterpiece, with only a road in 2002 being made through the steep hills to access the villages, so since then tourism has been booming.
The local indigenous people of the region, famous for the women and their long hair, benefit of course to some degree, but we were lured into a cheesy hair dance/singing ceremony in the village. A little like all 'cultural' performances, we couldve passed on that one, but the 'highlight' was of course when 4 male tourists were invited on stage to 'marry' a local girl. well, of course i couldnt resist! haha not really, it was highly embarassing, but was harrangued up there by a loud group of women sitting next to us, much to leona's amusement. the ritual included choosing the bride-to-be, dancing with her, singing a love song to her (which was a disaster), and various other fun and games..after that avoidable ordeal, it was up to the rice terraces. The fields had just been harvested, so the terraces were not as amazing as in the postcards (it never is), but breath-taking anyway. The air was clearer and the sun was finally out, and it involved a sticky 1.5 hour climb for the best views, looking down onto the snaking steps and levels, which seemed to stretch forever. Judging by the postcards id seen, the start of october is the best time to visit, when the terraces glow in a golden yellow colour. When we were there, it was more a 'golden' brown, with yellow and green bits..Amazing view anyway.We then left our bags in guilin, and took our backpack to the town of yangshou, about an hours bus ride from Guilin.
We stayed near the town, in the countryside, in an amazingly renovated farmhouse, run by some dutch people. they had only twenty rooms, and was situated in the middle of farmland, where rice, sugarcane, orangetrees, aubergines and where countless other produce was growing. situated right next to the yulong river, it was the perfect retreat away from the hustle and bustle of the previous towns and cities. the first afternoon we just wandered through the rice paddies and farmlands, over small bridges, where the limestone landscape jutted out everywhere, again like anthills, in the background. Here, the rice had not yet been harvested, so the views and surroundings were just amazing. Butterflies as well, all shapes and sizes, one different from the next were everywhere. It was amazingly calming and beautiful, and every once in awhile we came across farmers tending their waterbuffallos, and their crops and fields. The next day we hired bikes and just roamed the countryside, and soaked in the sun which appeared through the haze for some hours between 12 and 4, before sinking back into it. The last day we rafted idly down the river back to town on a bamboo raft, the perfect end to the few days there. The area was really romantic and stunning, and i think for both of us, combined with the place we were staying, a real highlight, we couldve spent a week there!We are now in Kunming, in transit to lijiang, which lies somewhere in the foothills of the himalayas, and just waiting around for our night bus to take us up there. The weather should be a little colder here, as its higher, but at the moment its mid 20's sunny and really nice. Weve looked at the forecast, and its more of the same where we're headed, so fingers crossed.Hopefully we can send some other photos soon, there was a little problem trying to send them from here, but we update the photos when we get out of china..until then youll have to do with my 'elequent prose' and your imagination! haha
so again, congratulations for getting this far (probably after a few days)!, leona will start working on the german translation, that comes out in 2015..
were still well, not a problem with the food and bugs and swine flu etc, so hope it stays that way..
lots of love to everyone, hope all are well
love joe and leona
as usual sorry for gramatical errors and punctuation misshaps!
I think I left off in Datong, waiting for the train to Xi'an, if I didnt, well too bad..We arrived early in the morning, really sunny and considerably warmer than the north, where it seemed to be a little more like it was heading quickly into winter, and after 3 weeks of coldish weather, we were glad to be able to just wear t-shirts. We ended up just exploring the old town here, which has a really interesting muslim quarter, a maze of old street-vendors and restaurants, and had an amazing spicy noodle soup for lunch, which was of course dirt cheap, but tasted unbelievable! Because of the silk road back in the days, Xi'an was one of the first 'million cities', so there was plenty of old stuff to see, ancient pagoda's and mosques etc and although it's very developed and now a massive city of 4.5 million people, it seemed to hold on to the old -town charm never-the-less. The next day we took a local bus out to see the terracotta warriors. (one of my 'to-do' things, and leona bravely tagged along!) I guess if youre not into archealogical things, its not for you, but it was amazing. There were 3 large rooms/hangars, all part of a burial chamber for one of the first (very evil) chinese emperors, who wanted a massive army of warriors, archers, crossbowmen, horses and chariots to carry him into the afterlife, to protect him. There is also another site 2km away, where he has his actual burial place which is also a few square kms filled with more day to day life articles, household 'appliances' etc. he even buried live horses, and the people who helped design and make the pits, to keep the site a secret from vandals and robbers. pretty harsh. but the pits themsleves were pretty huge, i think the main one is about 6000 square metres, filled with ceramic soldiers, many destroyed, but still hundreds in tact. each soldier has different facial features, so that not one single warrior is alike. all are equipped with the matching headware, clothes and even the tread on the shoes are different according to rank and file. evidently the emperor had planned the grave sites since he was 7 years old, and took almost 30 years to make, and was discovered in the 70's by some farmers drilling a well. pretty lucky find id say..anyway i was blown away, and even leona whos not normally impressed by ruins etc, seemed to be suitably wide-eyed.
The same evening we took the bus back to town, as we were catching another train down to chongqing, the starting point of river cruises up the yangtze. We arrived at the station and took a cab into the city. I tell you ive never seen so many housing estate, high rises- unbelivable. The area has about 35 million people living here, so space seems to be limited, so theyve just built and built, higher and higher. somehow it was impressive, even more so because the weather was shit, drisling and grey as concrete, as far as the eye could see everything was surrounded by low lying pollution/fog/rain. Its also quite hilly there, so some roads and the high rises on them dissapeared into the fog. I think its quite often grey and cloudy here, and also quite humid.
Chongqing is also famous for its fiery 'hot-pots', a sort of incredibly spicy bowl, a mix of boiling water, oil and spices, were you dunk all sorts of veggies and meats into this inferno, pausing only to cool it all off with beer. unfortunately the place we found didnt seem to excell at hot-pots, and we had already tried one in datong which was considerably better. but the experience was great anyway, and as everything was in chinese, i got out the phrase book to choose stufff, and in the end i went back into the kitchen and pointed out what i wanted to have. maybe not such a good thing to have done, as the kitchen had of course seen better days, and i reckon in china its best only to see you food after its cooked, not before! anyway, we didnt have a problem with our stomachs afterwards, so all was well.we were to take a boat up the yantze to the 3 gorges, and also the 'mini' 3 gorges. originally we wanted only a 2 night trip because we thought the weather wouldnt allow us to see that much anyway. unfortunately the guy who organized it put us by 'accident' on the 3 night trip, which meant we spent a full day ploughing up stream in some decidedly unromantic and down right boring landscape, in the doom and gloom, passing under several massive bridges, and very large factories(until we got to some temple in the evening where we had some great food). that was pretty much the highlight of the first day. it seems the 3 gorges area and river, and the development of it is a engineers dream, and an ecologists nightmare. the amount of buliding (infrastructure, dams, factories) on this rocky, steep terrain is staggering, and it must be very challenging to build there, especially on the scale that theyre building. as we had left chongqing harbour the previous evening in the gloom, there was nothing to do but have a few beers on board, and admire the lights and humongous new theatre on the way out of the harbour, amid 100's of very excited chinese tourists rushing around like mad. i thought to myself, this could be a long trip..thank god but the 2nd day, the day we went through the first gorge, the weather had cleared up enough for us to be able to see relatively clearly. we could tell something was going to happen, as after slinging down breakfast all the other tourists clammered to the front deck of the boat and set up shop in anticipation. well, as we now couldnt see anything, we joined the hordes, and after half an hour or so, the massive bluff came into sight. that bluff was worth the trip alone, it was a massive gorge rising maybe 500 metres on one side (that maybe a wrong estimate, i cant remember), the river was maye 70 metres wide, and the other side another bluff of about the same height. as we passed through we felt rather small. it was quite funny, as on the chinese 10 yuan note, there's a drawing of this gorge. so pretty much all the chinese were holding up their 10 yuan bills beside their faces and smiling away while husbands dilligently took photos, with of course the gorge behind them. the scenery was much better through here, very mountainous, all plunging into the water, small villages or lonely houses dotted around the shoreline. Having past through there, we were then sheparded hectically off the boat (hectic seems the only word to use when amonst a chinese tour group), to smaller boats to take us up the 'mini' 3 gorges. Although not so high as the first gorge, the river here was much narrower, and we both thought more beautiful, as one mountain range was lost into another. The villages were cuter and we could get closer views of them, until we reached another point, where we were bussled once more off the middle sized boat, onto smaller boats, to go further up the river. It was really nice, with ancient rock formations, huge bamboo forests, and we also saw a few monkeys hopping around. The scenery here was amazing, the only problem being, (which made it overall a little dissapointing), was the number of other tourists. In such a place of natural beauty, you really want to be alone with your thoughts, as it was, we had from start to finish a running commentary at about 3000 decibels, describing this and that. of course in chinese, so i dont know what was so exciting to be talking the whole time, at the end of the day its just rocks!
The last day was rather forced upon us to go to the dam, and visit 'the magnificent and spendorous 3 gorges dam' (as it was described at the entrance). well, it was big. very big. a 5 story boat lock, to transport the boats up and down from one part to the other, and something like 2.5 km long. grey, concrete and rocks, with shit loads of water behind it, something like over a billion cubic tonnes of water (exageration maybe..)..if youre into engineering, quite an accomplishment, which took over 10 years to make, and still not quite finished. we were shoved from one bus to another, one security check to another, (with constant commentary), so it was quite exhausting. only until the memorial park opposite, (where old equipment and 'stuff' like cranes and other 'fascinating' features used during the dams making are on display), did we have some respite from the chaotic tour.from there we took another bus to yichang, a rather ugly town where we had a day to wander around in before catching a night train, so we checked into a cheap hotel first to relax a bit. yichang, famous only for its 5000 or more brothels, is also right in the firing line of the dam, should it burst or collapse, the whole town of over a million would be wiped out within half an hour. so it was quite nice to get out of there, quickly!
the next stop was fenghuang, a small river town in hunan province, if you look at a map right in the middle of the south of the country. It was really cute here, red hanging lanterns on old houses (old-looking, most of them were probably renovated), all stuffed along the shoreline, an old town wall with 3 towers, small wooden bridges to cross the river by foot, and cute higgledy-piggeldy backstreets, bussling with food and local treats. a little touristy as always, but by now we were used to the throngs of people, and the trinkets on offer, but the atmosphere here was much more relaxed and chilled. we stayed right on the river, a cheap local place with a balcony over-looking the river, where we sat and watched nightfall close in. Night-time here was exactly the paradox of calm and chilled. every little corner throbbed with really bad, loud techno and kareoke (chinese are massive fans), and the music blasted out from the whole river front, a little like mallorca, chinese style! but it started early and finished early so it wasnt too bad. The other interesting thing about this town was the food. well, nothing for animal lovers and vegetarians here. pretty gross, and inhumane for the many different types of fish, crabs, (all swiming live around in dirty buckets) chickens, roosters, hornet nests, snakes, turtles, geese, frogs, grubs, squashed, dried and hammered flat pigs faces (they looked very weird), a disgusting beaver-like bamboo rat, with massive front teeth, which whenever you came close it'd hiss and jump around in its tiny cage. well, it was a literal zoo of disgusting animals, all to eat and all looking miserable and neglected. we ate pizza that night.
we left fenguang and took another shorter train to sanjiang, which was just a pass-through town for us. Unfortunatley, the train arrived in the pitch black and rainy north train-station at 2 in the morning, at a station, (little did we know) about 10kms away from anything. so after having to get off the train, in the middle of the train tracks (the platform being 20 metres long, our train 200), we had to think what to do. there was nothing there, the rain was getting heavier, and our torch didnt lead us to anywhere of great hope. no street lights, no station hotels or anything. The idea was to catch a short bus through to Guilin, (another, larger and more intersting city 4 hours away), but the buses didnt start to leave until 7 in the morning, from the bus station, where-ever that was. so the only option would be wait in the tiny waiting room until day light, and see if we could get someone to take us to the bus station. Luckily, some other chinese tourists had had the same idea as us, and had also got off the train here, and wanted to head into town and get a little sleep before heading on their way. with a little sign language that we wanted to do the same, they started knocking on doors, and managed to arrange a mini bus into town, to a hotel, where we finally got some sleep. They were really nice and couldnt speak a word of english, but just took us under their wing, and led us to a comfortable, dirt cheap room (with shower! we needed it!), right next to the bus station. of course from all the excitement, it took a while to get to sleep! We arrived in Guilin, a largish town, famous for its karst limestone geological structures, mountains of rock that bascially thrust themsleves out of nothing 150 metres in the air, and look basically like large anthills.
But the whole of this province is covered in these 'stuctures', and they ghost into the distance for miles and miles, getting lost in clouds of haze and pollution. These mounds are dotted all around the city, and all have small temples and look-out points on them, so before the sun went down, we climbed up one to get a view of the landscape. it was pretty nice but the gloom hindered the distance you could see, but with the hills reaching far back into the distant gloom, it was still nice to look at. Guilin is also the base point for many other sights in the region, where we were going to go, and the next day we headed to the dragonbone rice terraces, about 2.5 hours away from the city. The fields, about 800 years old, perched on top of a mountain range, are an argricultural masterpiece, with only a road in 2002 being made through the steep hills to access the villages, so since then tourism has been booming.
The local indigenous people of the region, famous for the women and their long hair, benefit of course to some degree, but we were lured into a cheesy hair dance/singing ceremony in the village. A little like all 'cultural' performances, we couldve passed on that one, but the 'highlight' was of course when 4 male tourists were invited on stage to 'marry' a local girl. well, of course i couldnt resist! haha not really, it was highly embarassing, but was harrangued up there by a loud group of women sitting next to us, much to leona's amusement. the ritual included choosing the bride-to-be, dancing with her, singing a love song to her (which was a disaster), and various other fun and games..after that avoidable ordeal, it was up to the rice terraces. The fields had just been harvested, so the terraces were not as amazing as in the postcards (it never is), but breath-taking anyway. The air was clearer and the sun was finally out, and it involved a sticky 1.5 hour climb for the best views, looking down onto the snaking steps and levels, which seemed to stretch forever. Judging by the postcards id seen, the start of october is the best time to visit, when the terraces glow in a golden yellow colour. When we were there, it was more a 'golden' brown, with yellow and green bits..Amazing view anyway.We then left our bags in guilin, and took our backpack to the town of yangshou, about an hours bus ride from Guilin.
We stayed near the town, in the countryside, in an amazingly renovated farmhouse, run by some dutch people. they had only twenty rooms, and was situated in the middle of farmland, where rice, sugarcane, orangetrees, aubergines and where countless other produce was growing. situated right next to the yulong river, it was the perfect retreat away from the hustle and bustle of the previous towns and cities. the first afternoon we just wandered through the rice paddies and farmlands, over small bridges, where the limestone landscape jutted out everywhere, again like anthills, in the background. Here, the rice had not yet been harvested, so the views and surroundings were just amazing. Butterflies as well, all shapes and sizes, one different from the next were everywhere. It was amazingly calming and beautiful, and every once in awhile we came across farmers tending their waterbuffallos, and their crops and fields. The next day we hired bikes and just roamed the countryside, and soaked in the sun which appeared through the haze for some hours between 12 and 4, before sinking back into it. The last day we rafted idly down the river back to town on a bamboo raft, the perfect end to the few days there. The area was really romantic and stunning, and i think for both of us, combined with the place we were staying, a real highlight, we couldve spent a week there!We are now in Kunming, in transit to lijiang, which lies somewhere in the foothills of the himalayas, and just waiting around for our night bus to take us up there. The weather should be a little colder here, as its higher, but at the moment its mid 20's sunny and really nice. Weve looked at the forecast, and its more of the same where we're headed, so fingers crossed.Hopefully we can send some other photos soon, there was a little problem trying to send them from here, but we update the photos when we get out of china..until then youll have to do with my 'elequent prose' and your imagination! haha
so again, congratulations for getting this far (probably after a few days)!, leona will start working on the german translation, that comes out in 2015..
were still well, not a problem with the food and bugs and swine flu etc, so hope it stays that way..
lots of love to everyone, hope all are well
love joe and leona
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