Ni Hao

Up at 7am and straight out for breakfast at the local noodle bar, they are really filling but the ladies in there kept laughing at us as we were the only western people in there and she gave us a little help mixing up the noodles before we ate them, the funny thing is I would never have thought that noodles for breakfast would be appetising but they were delicious.

We seem to have got right back on track and are filling our days to the max, just how we like it. Today we took a 2 hour drive out of Guilin city to visit Longsheng and 2 hill tribes that live there.

The first people we visited were the Yao people whose women are known for not cutting their hair till they get married then they just cut it the once, while any girl that is not married must not show their hair to anyone till they are married. Some of the women had hair over 2 metres in length and they wash it in the water that they have cooked the rice in!!!!

While in the village we went to watch some traditional dancing and singing which was fantastic they then needed volunteers to get married to a Lao girl so I put my hand up and before long I had a funny looking hat on and a big red bow tied around my chest, looking a bit like a gift wrapped Fu Man Chu!!!!

True to form before I was married it ended up costing me 50 yuan/4 quid for a gift for my new bride!!!!

The ceremony consists of unveiling your bride then sharing rice wine before exchanging gifts then I had to sing a song to her with a microphone. My rendition of Yvonne Elimann's (If I cant have you I dont want nobody baby) being the first song that sprang into my head was pretty funny to see, this was folowed by some dancing a bit like the hokey cokey with lots of rice wine.

On the way out if the ladies like you they pinch your bum the harder it is the more they like you needless to say my behind is full of bruises!!!!

It was then a 800m elevated climb to Pinang to see the Dong people where everyone is from the same family and married to one another, here we stopped for lunch.The reason for this is they are so far away from everyone and everything up in the mountains it takes too long to come down and into town so they find this easier.

After lunch we hiked the rest of the way (30 minutes) to the very top of the mountain to see the rice fields and on the way met a lovely chinese guy who gave us his rice wine to warm us up as it was seriously cold today. Unfortunately the views of the rice paddies were somewhat obscured by the mist that had descended but you could make out some of them. They are over 650 years old and stretch right up the mountain and look amazing.

The descent gave us both wobbly legs with all the steps or was it all the rice wine we had drank earlier!!!!

Then it was back to Guilin where it is freezing and might even snow tomorrow.

Lots of love

M & M

xx