one of the days we all decided to get a driver so we could visit all the places on our list. It was pricey for China but it turned out to be to one of the most awesome days ever, but not for the reasons I thought it would.
Our plan was to take the car to “some bridge” (name I can’t remember) that’s supposed to be amazing. The drive was amazing, at some points with all the pine trees it looked like Canada but there were also rice terraces, and Chinese style buildings, run down villages and markets. After a while the driver pulled up at a bridge, there were barely any tourists there but it was gorgeous and I swear if it hadn’t been frigid I would have gone swimming for sure! We spent a long time taking pictures because we thought this was the bridge all the guidebooks were talking about.
We got back into the car and kept driving but we were all antsy to get out again, especially as there were beautiful villages everywhere that we were missing. At one point we stopped in a small village and started to walk around. One house had a cooking area set up under a tarp and after some gestures we joined them as saw how they were cooking, cutting the really long noodles over a pot and boiling meats. We were outside taking pictures and the family started gesturing for us to come in. They took us into their kitchen and gave us all something to eat. It was this cereal in a sweet, syrupy water: it tasted amazing. It was so lovely to share food with this family even though none of us could communicate properly with them and had nothing to give them. All the children were so cute, some were to shy to pose for pictures and would hide behind their parents or other little children.
After that we kept driving and ended up at the actual bridge we were supposed to go to, the first one was a decoy! But you had to pay to get into this one and we were all to cheap to do that so we admired it from afar, had some bathroom adventures and then headed for the rice terraces. The rice terraces are at a high altitude and the higher we got the foggier it was. Near the top we couldn’t see too much, but it was still really cool. We walked through Ping’An a village accessible only by walking thats on the terraces, up in the mountain and ate rice in bamboo. Three of us kept walking trying to get near the top and the visibility got realllllly bad. It was deserted at the top, like a ghost town because it’s not tourist season. We met a cat who seemed hungry and being sensible I decided the only thing to do was name it Wallace, feed it the stale crackers we had and lure it into my lap. He didn’t follow me back and I won’t lie to you, it broke my heart a little bit. When we were walking back down we got a call that the driver really wanted to leave and it was getting dark so we started to book it. By the time we were driving down the mountain it was dark and foggy and for the first time I actually fastened my seatbelt. Despite the car almost breaking down we made it back safe and sound to Guilin!
