China Day Eight

Hurrah - a good night's sleep - thank goodness! The bed which is as hard as a board provided about 8 hours' sleep - more than I've had in the previous 3 nights put together! At one point in Beijing I even managed to listen to the whole of Paul McKenna's 30+ minutes hypnotism and I've never managed to stay awake through all of that before, and here I was listening to it at 3am!

Met Sunny at 9am this morning for a trip to Fui Li, a small village about 20 minutes drive from Yangshuo to see the 'real' China. As expected, abject poverty, flea ridden dogs, unsavoury smells, some very dodgy looking puddles of water in the street and many, many smiling faces, particularly from the children. I had 3 children of about 3 years who followed me down the road saying 'hello, hello' and giggling when I talked to them and waved to them. [On the way back to the hotel my guide thank me for saying hello to the children, telling me I was very kind to do so - how could you not?]

The narrow streets of the village offered no respite from the heat and even though it was still early, I was glad to see that Sunny was suffering with the heat too after an hour's walking. I saw the paddy fields and against the backdrop of the mountains, it's a beautiful sight. Harvest time for the rice is once a year elsewhere in China and twice a year in Yangshuo and it's due to being tomorrow although I saw a few fields being harvested on the way to Fui Li this morning. The rice is cut by hand and the plants put through a wooden threshing machine which separates the grains from the leaves. The leaves are then tied together to dry and fed to the buffalo in the winter, used as bedding or as fuel for the fires.

My discovery for today is that peanuts grow in the ground! Did you know that? I didn't! I thought they grew in trees! You can imagine how much laughter that invoked in Sunny can't you? Happy to admit it and only found out otherwise when an old man walked past with a set of bamboo 'scales' balanced on his shoulder with the nuts and their leaves and roots still attached!! Oh well ... I shall know next time that comes up in a pub quiz.

Back at the hotel and have lunch with my guide at 12.30pm before an afternoon by the pool and dinner before the show this evening. A relaxing day before travelling to Shanghai tomorrow morning.

Hope you all have had a good weekend x