I'm back from Yang Shuo..Continued...IV

Like I said..."Travel in China this time of year is just CRAZY!!"

On our way to Guilin from Yand Shuo, the bus would stop and pick up people along the way. When we ran out of seats they would hand out little plastic stools to the people as they got on and they would sit in the isle. Nobody seemed to mind.

Even this little melon head had to mess with the foreigner.
"What are you looking at?"

Another little cutie.

From Guilin, we headed strait to Long Sheng.
This area is famous for its rice terraces carved into the mountain sides.
When we finally arrived, it was dark and we had to climb up a mountain...Glad I had my flashlight!!
There were these ladies waiting with baskets to help carry our bags up the hill.
At firs I said "NO"...I can carry my own bag.
After a few minutes I thought "Okay, this is how they earn a living", and gave in.
I only had a small suitcase that wasn't very heavy, so I didn't feel too bad.

Denise, was another case!
She had a huge backpack that must have weighed a ton.
Or at least 50 lbs.
Nobody was jumping over themselves to take her backpack.
Not even me.
"I warned you not to buy that extra fan!"

After we settled in, we took a walk up the mountain to an area where they had a bar and some locals selling goods.
I noticed a group in an area doing some dance routine for the tourists.



It was really interesting!

At one point they even grabbed people from the crowd to join in.
And don't you know it, they grabbed me.
Sure, pick on the white guy...LOL.
Denise took some pictures, but they were all pretty blurry.

And the finally!!!!!!

And of course...FIREWORKS!!

Back at the cabin, we had dinner with some new friends.
Ricky and his wife.(Sorry...I forgot her name)

The next morning we got a view of our 4 story cabin.
This place was put together without one single nail or bolt!

Here's the view from my room.

It was a bit rainy...off and on .

But when you could see...WOW the view!

It was incredible watching the clouds move through the mountains.



In the morning, my new Chinese friends and myself, hung out by the fire and waited for our breakfast(noodles).

Don't mess with this kid!!
He could put your eye out with that finger!


Locals would come around carrying fresh vegetables for sale.

And off to the next village.

And for those who could not get around very well they had these guys that would carry you around. Unfortunately for them, these were the people who were the heaviest.
Most people that I saw being carried were old or obese. Some were just plain lazy.

This guy even had his kid on board.

I just can't stress how much fun it is to travel in China.
I haven't gone to one city and not made a good friend.

Later that day we had bamboo rice.
They take rice, chicken and taro and mix it up and put it inside bamboo and then cook it by placing the bamboo over an open fire.
Then you split the bamboo open and eat it right out of the bamboo...Tasty!!

Down below it was nice but when you got up to the top...It was raining.


As we walked around we would see ladies wearing these outfits that they usually only wear for special occasions.
Gotta keep the tourists happy.

What beauties!!

Here's an example of how fast the clouds moved in on top of the mountain.
These next two pictures were taken moments apart.

It was amazing to be on top of this mountain and watch the rain clouds roll in and out.
Like waves of an ocean.

Later on as we were walking around...BOOM...A bull in our path.
Not a problem....I just rode him down to the bottom.(RIGHT)

Okay...In this region, the ethic minorities are famous for their long hair.
It seems that the ladies only cut their hair every 18-20 years.
Then they save the hair after they cut it.
For 5 yuan (50 cents) they will show you their hair.
This one lady followed us around for a while and even waited while we ate lunch.
With that kind of determination, I had to give in.

You can see that the woman on the right has two extra bundles of hair in her hand.


Then she had to try to sell me some head cloth...thing.
It was nice but I'm just not into buying stuff.
If I bought everything that I wanted...I'd have a bag like the one Denise had to carry around.

Anyway, it took her a good 15 minutes to wrap her hair back up into the bundle on top of here head.

I heard a saying that goes something like this;

Life is not about the amount of breaths you take.
It's about the moments that take your breath away.

I was breathless here!
The village behind me is where we were staying.


I met this Italian photographer who didn't know about the long haired gals.
I told him about them as they attacked him with offers to show their hair.
I helped negotiate a fair price for him.




As beautiful as this place is, it's hard to believe that this is the off season.
I could just imagine how it looks when the rice is tall and green.

That night, as usual...FIREWORKS!
Our new Chinese friends had a whole arsenal of fireworks and invited us to help them set them off.

In between blasts.



What great friends!

Later that night they invited me to play some Chinese drinking games.
There must have been about 10 or 12 of us.
Some games were memory games and then there was this version of pick-up-sticks.

And I taught them how to play "Quarters".
We had to modify a cup because we didn't have a shot glass.
And the coin was a yuan...but it was similar to a quarter.


To be continued...one more time.

Jim

By the way, last night I met a new teacher that came to teach here in Changxing.
His name Is Eric and he is from New York.
I met him at his school in town and showed him around town a bit.
We had dinner at my favorite Ma-La-Tang place and ran into another new teacher from Boston, Joy.
Joy is teaching at the Hope Language School.
I forgot to take a picture of her, but I'm sure she'll be in here soon.
After dinner we met up with Jenny and Bill from the Rainbow school and had a couple of drinks.
Then Eric got his first ride in a pedal taxi on the way back to his school.

Welcome to China Eric!!