Day 5

I can't believe i'm still talking about China!  Whew.  Its almost over.  Today is the Li River Cruise.  We hopped on a big boat and meandered down a wide and shallow river for about four or five hours.  It was the best part of the trip.  We all sat on the top floor of the boat almost all day.  The best thing was that people only came out to the top when they announced we were passing a famous mountain.  So it was nice to be in nature and in (mostly) solitude.

This is Julie our tour guide in Guilin.  She was really funny and nice to be around.  

In China people gawk at you and take photos of you.  Its so annoying.  We kinda felt like celebrities, but not in a good way.  We just wanted to be left alone.  So we got fans so we could hide our faces when people take photos of us.  Im sure that just makes us more weird to look at, but at least our faces aren't with them forever.  People also come up to you and ask if they can take your picture with them.  Maybe i come off mean, or not very "American" because nobody wanted a photo with me, thankfully.  But my friends didn't have it so easy.

We were on a boat like the ones in the background.

There have been many books about this place and some movies filmed here.  if you ever saw the  movie "The Painted Veil," you were looking at Guilin.  

After the river cruise we went into town and rented some bikes.  Driving anywhere in China is hell.  Absolutely annoying and terrifying.  It is by the grace of God that anyone survives.  Thankfully this town is small and we went out into the countryside pretty quickly.  It was so nice to ride a bike again!  On our bike ride we stopped at a famous house that is over 300 years old.  The original owner of the house was a famous general.  The house is very moderately contemporary.  It has electricity for a fan, tv, refrigerator and some light.  But they seem to use it all very sparingly.  This is inside the house.  The guy in the middle is the great great great grandson of the general.  He was an incredibly happy man.  

They fed us watermelon and "small yellow skinned fruit."  It tasted like a sweet lemon but had the texture of a grape.  It was tasty, but a lot of work to eat it.  

This was sitting on the mantel.  The big fat jar has silk worms in it, and the other has some snakes.  Its an alcoholic beverage for men.  Its supposed to be like olden day viagra.  

The well, it works and was so refreshing.

The happy son had his bird do tricks for us.  His bird did ten flips in a row.  It was pretty impressive.  

The thing hanging on the wall is a fisherman's rain coat.  It is made of a plants and is hand woven.  Pretty impressive.

 On our bike ride we passed a small hotel called "Outside Inn."  I wondered if they had any idea how clever their name was.  

Further on our bike ride we found this guy.  He may have been tied up, but at least he got to escape from the crazy heat.

In this area of China you will see the bamboo boats floating along with a bunch of black birds on them.  The birds kinda look like blackish brown do-do birds.  The fisherman train the birds to to catch the fish for them.  They tie their neck so the bird won't swallow the fish.  At the end of the day the birds are rewarded with fish.  They are kinda like having a hunting dog, and totally treated like one.  It was pretty funny to see.