A Journal, with Pictures

Guilin is famous for the beau­ti­ful lime­stone for­ma­tions that cre­ate the topog­ra­phy around the Banyan Tree Resort where we stay dur­ing our vis­it. We are actu­al­ly out­side of Guilin in the coun­try near the vil­lage of Yang­shou. Dur­ing our stay we vis­it a vil­lage and learn about Tofu mak­ing from a delight­ful Chi­nese woman, vis­it­ing homes and see­ing how the rur­al peo­ple of Chi­na live. Grand par­ents take care of work­ing chil­dren’s chil­dren, so we got to meet a real Chi­na doll. We saw fields being plowed with water buf­fa­lo and cot­tage indus­try of mat mak­ing. The homes were new, con­struct­ed by the own­ers, the peo­ple we met were very friend­ly and wel­com­ing. Despite Chi­na’s eco­nom­ic mir­a­cle 800 to 900 of the 1.35 bil­lion Chi­nese still are peasants.

We then enjoyed the incred­i­ble scenery sur­round­ing the Li Riv­er by raft­ing on a bam­boo raft.