Food

I still can't quite get over how I spent my Christmas eve with those village musicians and actors …

Anyway, today was a travel day: 2 hours on a mini bus from Yangshuo to Guilin, another 2 hours from Guilin to the dusty town of Longsheng, and the last leg was a 1 hour trip to Ping An. But to get to Ping An town, there’s another 25 minute vertical climb up granite steps.

On the way here, I could already see parts of the Long Ji rice terraces and bamboo forests. There is so much natural beauty in what I've seen of Guangxi, but the people here live under the kind of poverty that I haven't seen elsewhere in China. Man that's cruel, to live in the midst of an overwhelming wealth of beauty but have so few means.

Ok, on this transition day, I talk briefly about food. I haven't eaten anything all that good until today. I've tried local specialties like beer fish (which is basically an attempt to cover up the muddy sooty taste of bottom feeding catfish with beer, with very little success) and Guilin rice noodles, but nothing struck me fancy. Until today in Ping An, where, after spending all day on buses and eating biscuits, arriving after dark, tired and hungry, I stopped at a small place for dinner and saw some local folks eating a bamboo rice thing (pic above). And it was goooood. They stuff rice, local sausage, a yellowish yam, mushroom and carrot into a bamboo stalk, and cook it over open fire. Yummy!

That's all for today. I plan to be up before sunrise tomorrow to do a 3-4 hour hike through the rice terraces. The sun came out today for the first time on my trip, and it warmed up a bit, so hopefully tomorrow will be a good day to hike and take some pics.