Guilin and Yangshou

From Kunming I got another overnoight train to Guilin in the South of China. In Chinese terms its a relativly small city so I only spent a couple of nights there. From there I did a day trip to a small village called Longshen and up into the hills to see an area where the hills are coverered in terraced rice fields. It does look very impressive from the postcards I've seen but unfortunatly the day I went the hills were mostly in the cloud so souldn't actually see much at all. It was still interesting to visit the village though, in this area the women are seen as more important and dominant over men. We saw a performance of traditional dancing and singing and heard a bit about the culture of the area. They believe that hair is a symbol of life so only get it cut once, when they are 18. So there hair is about 2m long and the style that they wear it in indicates if they are married or have children.

From Guilin I got a boat down the river to Yangshou. the weather still wasn't great but the scenery from the boat was quite spectacular and the mist around the mountains just added to it. Yangshou is quite a touristy town with most places being either guest houses or restraunts and bars and it is a very popular place with Western tourists, don't think I've seen so many since I left home. It has been a nice and relaxing place to stay for a few days. Spent a day just exploring the town and then went to a cooking class that was very good fun. Learnt to cook a few Chinese dishes including the local speciality of beer fish and my attempts actually tasted quite good. Spent an interesting evening going watching cormorant fishing, the traditional way of catching fish here, that is still used a bit. They tie string round a cormorants neck then take them out on the river. The comorants catch fish butthey cant swallow them properly so the fisherman then catches the comorants and makes it regurgitate them and the fish are still alive. Was interesting to see but I didn't want fish for dinner after seeing that.

Have spent the last couple of days just cycling around the local area on tracks by the river around loads of little villages and through the rice fields and farms. This area is a lot like the typical image or rural China and quite different to anywhere else I've been. Its also the main area for climbing in China, although there still doen't seem to be that much of it around and i think its all bolted routes. i haven't actually tried any of it though as having seen the Chinese idea of safety standards in general, I decided against hiring some gear.

Off to Hong Kong tonight so I'm looking forward to seeing how different it is from the rest of China, not really sure what to expect.