China, Part 2

We take a bus from our hotel to the train station, board a metro to another station, catch a bus and cross the border into “mainland” China. After another bus ride, we finally arrive at the airport. The plane was supposed to be arriving late, but the two-hour delay means we don’t arrive at our hotel until 1 am.

Things are looking brighter in the morning. We hire a boat and take a cruise. Where in the World are Ethan and Siena? I’m sure you’ve all seen these weird looking mountains in Chinese paintings, and thought the artists were either surrealists or wacko or both. But, they really do look this way. These are karsts, formed when the limestone in the bedrock is dissolved by acidic water. The water forms cracks in the rock, which widen, eventually forming caves and these tall, vertical mounds. This is the Li River valley, just outside of Guilin, and it is stunning. Our driver did not speak English, but he was able to pull out a 20 Yuan note and show us how the picture on it matched the scenery here.

The next day, we rent two tandem bicycles for the staggering sum of about $2 a piece. We spend the day riding through tiny, ancient villages, between rice paddies and karsts, crisscrossing back and forth over the river. An elderly couple gestures to us that there is something for us to see. After stomping on the edge of a rice paddy several times, the woman scares the cobra into wriggling away. It must be 5 feet long. We are encouraged to not stumble into the paddies in the future. There are fabulous bridges, some over 600 years old. We swam in the current just upstream from this bridge

The natural formations are lovely, but the man-made ones in this area are perhaps even more spectacular. The Longji region is renowned for the amazing rice paddies. There are thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of terraces, all following the topography of the mountains. The whole thing looks like a giant relief map, or a depth chart in reverse. The towns here can only be accessed on foot. And, it’s a steep climb up. There are paths between the villages and we have fun climbing through the narrow stone walkways. The viewpoints all have wonderful Chinese names like “7 Stars With Moon” and “9 Dragons and 5 Tigers”, and although we can’t pick out any of the figures mentioned we are enthralled with the landscape.

The local minority tribe by the terraces are known for their long hair (almost 2 meters long, wound like a turban around their heads) and for cooking food inside of bamboo. Neither the hair style nor the cooking has become in vogue elsewhere in the world, and it is just as well. Nearer the river, the specialty is “Beer Fish”, which turns out to be carp in a brown sauce, which is so-so. We also accidentally ordered the dog on the menu. When at home, and my friend Audrey complains she always orders the dog, she means something different entirely. Here, although the menu said Beef with Vegetables, we weren’t so sure, as it didn’t taste like beef and was too tough to chew, and we quickly sent it back. The local brew is LiQ, pronounced Lee Ching, which is a wonderful, crisp, dry beer. And, at 8 Yuan (about $1.14) for 600 milliliters at restaurants, it might just be at the top of the Beattie Beer Index. We also have a pint of homemade ale at a French restaurant/brewery here in the small town of Yangshou, and giggle our way through items that could be on the menu here: Panda l’orange, or dog au vin were our two favorites, but we had had a couple of pints each at this point.

So, Gun Bai (pronounced gun buy, which you say after tapping the glass on the table, and before chugging the drink)
The Beatties