The day started with breakfast at the hotel, they had tried to offer a selection of western options. Grilled sausage (Cut up Frankfurt), Continental breakfast (included plastic cheese!) and a bakery section (Coconut roll, marble cake).

We then met our tour guide for the trip to the Dragon's back rice terraces. Despite the long hot car journey and the 'toilet' stop which had a communal water bowl in order to 'flush' the toilet, the trip was worth it. The stunning views over the mountain showing hundreds of rice terraces with villages dotted inbetween was amazing. We walked to the closest village and hiked up the precarious stone steps to a higher viewing platform, enabling us to see down in to the valley and see more of the village. There were blankets of red and yellow on almost every house which was red chillies and sweetcorn laying in the sun to dry out.

After we had almost overheated in the burning sun (38c) a local invited us to lunch at their house, our tour guide encouraged this as a great opportunity. Although we never believed this was a spontanous unplanned invitation, we decided to go ahead as lunch was included in our tour so unlikely we would be ripped off! We were led to the house by our tour guide and it appeared the first floor of the house had been converted to a small restaurant. The food was freshly cooked and prehaps the nicest thing we have eaten so far! It consisted of several dishes: bamboo shoots and pork, fried potato, bacon and chinese sausage and rice with meat and pumpkin cooked in a bamboo stick which acts as a steamer. All the ingredients and dishes were made by the family even the bacon, although I don't think we would want to see where it was made!

After lunch we headed back to the hotel to cool off after a long hot day and pack for our boat trip to Yangshou. During dinner we were offered Moon cake as today is the mid-autumn festival in Guilin, this can only be decribed as a pastry with a sweet sugary filling and a hard egg yolk... Different and disgusting :-)