Minority Villages

The past couple of days have been fairly tame, went to Longsheng for the Dragon Backbone terraces. This was an interesting village that had pretty amazing architecture. The rice paddies were about 2m wide but they were stacked like steps along the mountain and they wound about in waves. The designs of the terraces were impressive but wasn't really worth the 4hr bus ride to get there. It was tourist mecca too, there were stonepath trails to take you from one view to another. Am getting a little weary of the hyper-commercialism of this place. So that took the entire day, a welcome change and not too strenuous on my sore legs.

Today we caught a local bus to a village called Xing Ping that Bill Clinton made famous on one of his visits. The village itself was really laidback, I imagine what Yangshuo would have looked like a few years ago before it became a mecca for backpackers. This one lady dogged us for ages wanting us to take the Li River tour. The boat trip price was rather high and while we were walking to the port, the sky opened up and we got drenched. So we hitched a ride back into town and decided to climb to the peak of one of the mountains for the view of the town. The climb itself was great though near the top it got pretty scary with the slippery steps. It got pretty steep and we needed to climb up a ladder to get to the top. Definitely not good for ppl with a fear of heights. The view was amazing though, and we were lucky to have it all to ourselves for about an hour. We just lazed around on the lone pagoda that was donated by a Japanese person, saw the skies change as the sun peeked out again. It was a gorgeous view.

The climb down was rather treacherous though, the steps were very slippery, quite narrow. I am getting weary of constantly fearing for my life, lol. Ok am exaggerating (slightly) it was a scary descent but do-able, just had to be careful and slow, one slip really would have meant going over.

So tomorrow we are leaving Yangshuo and catching a 19hour train ride to Kunming. From there we are heading to Dali and Lijiang. As we were languishing in our hotel room this afternoon, we decided to cross Emei-shan off our list, sounds like a huge tourist trap, 3 day up and down a mountain blocked with tourists and aggressive monkeys. Am getting tired of constantly fighting off touts, wondering who we can trust and who is ripping us off. I miss Japan, how straightforward and friendly people are. Maybe am getting homesick. Looking forward to Tibet and Mongolia though. And of course seeing the rest of southern China. Maybe the heat is getting to me.