Hua Xi Mansion Liuzhou

... every day. It is made by frying tea leaves in oil. After the leaves are fried, water is added along with peanuts, chopped onions and puffed rice. The tea is very bitter for people not used to it and salt is offered to help kill the bitterness.

Da Zhai is the biggest and most famous village among the eight villages in the scenic area. It needs five minutes in every direction from there to other villages. The village is a good place to base ...

We had a day of travel to Liuzhou. It was about a 4 hour drive to get to the train station. The bus was TINY too. When we got to Liuzhou, we had about 2 hours before our train arrived. So, Terry took us to find some food. The first place he was going to take us was not very busy and smelled weird. He decided to go somewhere else. We ended up eating at a restaurant that had ...

... Dong Village inhabited by an ethnic minority group, we requested certain items for dinner and saw the family go out and retrieve our destined chicken and duck. High up in the rice terraces where people are forced to walk uphill for many miles (including ourselves!!) we saw the women (dubbed the pink ladies - you'll see why in the photos) hauling pigs and other livestock on its way to market. After a traditional lunch of greens, tofu, pumpkin, egg and tomato (the national overrated dish ...

... by the dark giants to our left, right, and rear. We face the valley where the town lies and the banks of the river to watch the town wake up: first the streetlights switch off and cars begin to move. As the sun struggles to rise above the mountains on the east, we take pictures and enjoy the beginning of another day by the Li river. Boating in XingPing The day before also found us hunting a ...

... mountains and they reminded us just how far away we really were. These mountains are famous in Chinese paintings and many people have come to enjoy them, and it's crazy just how small you feel to be there. It was so amazing. Next we went to Moon Hill, which is a natural half-moon shape that has been made in the middle of the mountain. It was really neat, and we wanted to climb to the moon! So we walked up 1250 steps to the top and when we got there... oh boy! were we beat! It had an ...

... see forgeiners let alone coloured ones!! In Huashan (apparantly pronounced Hwa Shaan) but ma accent makes everything sound like I'm swearing. We went to see some murals which historians don't really know who did them or why. Archeologists beleive they were done by the the Louyue people during the East han period (A.D. 25-220) making them ancient. Still doesn't stop them looking like a two year old drew them! Aye I appreciate ...

Ok, problems with my visa. Instead of being given a 60 day permit as requested I was given two 30 day visas. This means I either need to leave the country and come back in or try and get a visa extension. I think i'll go for the second as return flights to Hong Kong will cost me a fortune. Unfortunately that means I'm stranded in and around Guilin for the next ...

... a small handcart. As I got closer I saw he'd fallen asleep on his stool, and no amount of polite 'ni hao's or coughing would rouse him. Eventually a rather amused-looking street sweeper took pity on the both of us and gently shook him awake (along with what I think were the words 'foreign customer!' though I may be wrong! :-) ). The keys themselves were duplicated for the princely sum of 5 yuan. I think he was expecting me to haggle, but I was in a bit of a ...

... so it wasn't really being used anyway, but you've really got to admire the guts of anyone prepared to stand in the fast lane armed only with a broom, as they dry their rice out on the tarmac. By now it was getting late in the afternoon, so after dropping our bags off at the hotel, we took a walk beside the river Li en route to a very welcome dinner; our in-flight lunch had consisted of a single pack ...

... finished lay about 2 inches thick on the ground around her feet to add to the couple of tons more from the other seed nibblers. Stopping at a few stations along the way long enough to step off and check what munchies were available from the platform vendors I quickly lost my appetite after waiting for a group to re-board all of them crunching on skewers of chicken feet - never been so glad of instant noodles before.