"Mei Yao Pollution, just Beautiful Scenery!"

We left Hong Kong on Monday evening and landed in Guilin in the Guangxi province, China, late into the evening. Our local guide, Mei Li, met us at the airport and escorted us to our hotel for the night. Our first reaction to the city and our first glimpse of China showed somewhere clean, pollution-free, non-high rise and indeed very beautiful. We hadn't done a great deal of research around the cities for this trip (I just knew that it had to include the Panda sanctuary at Chengdu), but we had purposefully chosen more countryside locations so that we could see some real China and Gulin gave us a glimpse that this would certainly be the case. The city has been well looked after to cater for the 13 million Chinese and 1 million foreign tourists a year (wow!) and from the little we saw of it, it's very picturesque. Chinese parks, limestone peaks all around the city, lakes and canals all lit up like Venice and quaint bridges and pagodas in Chinese style. When we managed to have a quick walk by the lake in the morning we were delighted to see groups of women doing Tai Chi and some kind of therapeutic flag and fan dance, a man playing the Chinese flute, people stretching before the start of their workday - very cultural!

Yesterday we took a morning boat tour from Guilin to Yangshou. The tour was along the Li river and whisked us past the Limestone peaks and afforded photos of jaw-dropping scenery (similar, but probably more stunning scenery to that at Halong Bay in Vietnam) with local farmers bathing their water buffalo, teathered cormorants assisting the local fisherman (apparently their throats are ringed so that they can only catch, but not swallow, the big fish and then the fisherman takes them) and many other local scenes. The temperature here is as hot as Indochina (about 30 degrees + still) and so we were glad to check into our hotel and relax in the air-con before venturing out in the evening.

Yes, apparently in the rural community in China, it is good luck and brings longevity, if you buy a coffin for your elders and show it in the house..

Our guide had purchased some tickets for an amazing outdoor show for us in the evening which was set against the backdrop of the Li river and limestone peaks and involved over 6,000 local minority performers. We have never seen anything  quite on this scale before and it was fantastic with lights, lazors, singing etc. Check it out at the following address. The even more crazy thing was the sky - so clear that we have never seen so many stars in our lives before! http://www.travelchinaguide.com/attraction/guangxi/yangshuo/impression-sanjieliu.htm  Following the show we headed into the small town for some beer fish (a great local delicacy) and duck - all for about 7 pounds with drinks!

Today we took a bike tour with our guide this morning to explore the area surrounding Yangshou. We experienced some of real China countryside - rice paddies, small local farms and villages. We even stopped off at a farmhouse and were greeted with a huge toothless smile from the Grandma of the family (79 years old) and invited in to try her homegrown peanuts, visit the pig shed, look at the orange groves and view her coffin! Yes, apparently in the rural community in China, it is good luck and brings longevity, if you buy a coffin for your elders and show it in the house - this one was apparently bought for the Grandmother 16 years ago. This way you are prepared for the future so she told us. She was indeed very proud of this ornament.

After 3 and a half hours of pedal pushing in the sun we were ready for a chill in the air con again and to stretch out our "not seen exercise for more than 4 months" thighs! This afternoon we are going to drink ice coffees, explore the town a little more and probably indulge in more Kaoya ('duck' in Mandarin for those wondering!) Tomorrow we head for a bigger city, Kunming.