And all those photos from National Geographic

Can you remember the photos from National Geographic of a man in a bamboo boat fishing with Cormorants? Well we were there today. The Li River karsts are so famously China that the image of the ride between Guilin and Yangzhou are on the 20 Yuan bill.

What a beautiful spot. We spent the better part of the day on a boat cruising this scenic valley of beautiful rock formations. A serene and by Chinese standards protected area of amazing geography. The boats were loaded with all Chinese tourists being a Saturday. People played cards, hung with multiple generations of family members and took a million pictures. The selfie stick is in abundance here in China. Fishermen and women pulled up to the back of the boat to bring fish that were cooked on board by the staff and served bones and all.

A few of you have asked about the food. Here is the scoop. Our guides have had to be broken in that we do not want American food! Breakfasts are a combination of a traditional Chinese breakfast and interpretation of European/American fare. A little off in its cold cuts, white bread, strange versions of bacon and sausages and eggs (of the quail variety)! We tend to gravitate to the handmade dumplings, steamed stuffed buns, exotic fruits (dragon fruit, passion fruit, Kumquats and Dragons Eye). There are also fresh juices and a hot noodle soup with a mixture of fresh greens, a fresh cabbage stir fry and something sweet and steamed like Taro or Sweet Potatoes. They have served coffee but the majority of Chinese are still tea drinkers and they prefer green teas or Oolong teas to black teas.

Lunch and dinner so far have consisted of some interesting local dishes. A lot of noodles so far. Nothing too spicy and some interesting veggies. We have eaten a lot of eggplant, broccoli and dumplings too. We have been warned about the fish and seafood because of the pollution and have eaten poultry, pork, beef, eggs and tofu as the protein part of the meal. Coco is getting pretty good with chopsticks even though we are using the slippery plastic kind. The Chinese serve small portions of a family meal from a Lazy Susan in the center of the table in to small bowls which are held fairly close to the face when eating. This avoids the dropsy’s and is actually a charming way to eat slowly and to sit and converse in-between servings.

We had a little time for some solo shopping this evening on a busy, noisy street. Lots of loud music and sales people on microphones trying to entice shoppers in to their stores.

We are heading to Beijing by plane early tomorrow. We have just read that the air quality is categorized as hazardous today. A little unnerving. We will have a little time to ourselves before we meet up with the rest of our tour group.  Four other families, five girls in all. Coco is pretty excited!

I must apologize for the photos. We have had a lot of internet issues and our good camera has an e-mail based transfer method which we cannot get to work. So you are getting Coco and my iphone photos. Erich must have taken a thousand pictures on the river today. I am going to have to take a week off just to review and delete these trip photos!