I’ll get straight to the point, which is to post all these pictures I was finally able ot upload and edit.
Shenzhen was our forst real stop. It’s not photogenic. There’s lots of steel and glass. Myung’s office was on the 14th floor of the structure on the right.
There aren’t amy fun pictures of Shenzhen. We went to a couple of parks. Whoopie. Then we went to Yangshuo, the town where most people base their wandering up and down the Li and Yulong Rivers. First, here are some pictures along the Yulong. The limestone karst is quite famous. It is likely you recognise the scenery from pictures and travelogues.
Here come some pics along the Li. This is where most of the postcard photos are taken, not to mention the engraving on the back of the 20 yuan note. This first is of where the boats take off if you’re going on a river ride from Yangshuo. There are big boats, little boats, and everything in between.
Rafts at rest.
The most famous terraces in the area are called Dragon’s Backbone, near Sanjiang. They are probably a beautiful green when the rice and other crops are growing. Right now it’s fallow.
But there are some interesting people there. Here’s a couple of pictures of Myung I like, and one of a street vendor (if you can call the lanes there streets).
The grub is really interesting. Here’s a typical cook, and here is typical grub, dried rat. People have asked “Do they really eat rat?’. Well, they do. You boil it into soup. And, yes, dog is quite popular. We’ve had it several times. I’ll spare they westerners the sight of that hanging by the pork and beef.
So far, we are still in Guangxi Province. The last stop there was Chengyang where there are many picturesque covered bridges in a cluster of minority villages. The villagers there are
Miao, or Hmong as they are called more oftenn in the West, and Ma’am and Yao. Here are pictures of bridges, of which there are 188 in Sanjiang County, and some villagers. The women are famous for their long hair which they generally never cut. They mostly keep it wound up on their head. They will let it down if you give them some money. We passed. Actually, I think they should let it down and wash it sometimes. I’ve never seen so much dandruff.
Talk about low tech. This is how they water their fields around there. I heard some dumb bell pundit on CNN say China may not have enough infrastructure left to develop, that they may be out of ways to stimulate the economy during the current economic recession. Sheesh.
There was a little performance for the tourist in the Ma’am village. It was way cute.
Make mo mistake, they are definitely up for selling stuff.
Next we went to Hongjiang old city, in Hunan Province. It’s a little off the tourist route, even though it’s in Lonely Planet. They would like to charge admission, but a guy said no one came, so they bailed.
I was really looking forward to getting to Kunming, the capital of Yunnan, so I could utilize high speed connection to post pictures. I’ve run out of time to post more, however. Myung has already left on the night bus to Lijiang. I prefer to ride during the day, so I’m taking the 10 hour day bus tomoorow morning. It’s about 11 PM and they are closing the hostel internet place in a few minutes. So I’ll have to close for now. I hope now that I’ve loaded my pictures onto WordPress, the connection in ?Lijiang will be fast enoug to post the rest. I also hope I have time. I haven’t researched how to stay in China more, and we are tentatively planning to go to Myanmar nextt week. With all we plan to do and the travel time required for all this, I may not have a chance to stay caught up. I’ll try. Meanwhile, be well, all of you.
