China Part I - Granny's Great China Adventure begins.

Vacation's over. Wah wah...boo hoo!
OK, I have been a procrastinator but then that is nothing new. I have promised to share vacation photos so I will start today.
Granny and James' Excellent Adventure (et. al.) China Part I - Leaving The States and arriving in Guilin, China.

Early on the morning of October 15th we made our way to Salt Lake International Airport and our Excellent Far East adventure was under way. The 'we' being my mother, LaRee Shurtliff, Raylene and Robert Bush, my sister and brother-in-law, Dee Anna Ito, a good friend with whom we have traveled before, we cruised Alaska back in 2002 (but that's another story) and myself, James Elmer. (Click on photos to see full size.)

-------LaRee & James--------------Dee Anna & LaRee-------------Raylene & Bob------

It was an early departure, we all seemed a little less than lively.

After a three hour more or less, layover at LAX, where we joined up with Dian Thomas (who was to be one of our guides) we boarded Asiana Airlines, a Korean carrier, bound for Seoul. We flew through the day into the night, crossing the international date line, into the next day before arriving in Seoul. There we made a stopover and continued on to China. After a very long day and night and day of traveling we arrived at night on the 16th, in Guilin, Guangxi Provence, China. I had been to Japan and Thailand years ago but this tas the first time in the far east for everyone else. It was and adventure in the making.

Mom found and interesting seat to take a breather while I raced back to the plane to retrieve her camera which she had forgotten in the seat pocket.

We had already gone through security areas and I wasn't allowed to go back through them. No one spoke English and it was not easy to explain why I was attempting to go the wrong direction but eventually they understood that I wanted a camera left on the plane. They sent someone to look for it and I waited with the security guards. After a little while a lady came hurrying back from the gate. the plane was still there and the camera was still in the seat pocket. Whew! First crisis averted.

We picked up our baggage and got through customs without any further problems. Next we met up with Henry, one of our guides, who rounded up the rest of our group. We boarded a bus together and made our way from the airport to Guilin through the dark city streets and on to the Guilin Bravo Hotel.

• Part I
• Guilin

It was late when we arrived so we went right to bed. It was to be an early morning call for a day packed full of sightseeing. Tired as we were, it wouldn't be all that simple. The beds (as we would come to learn throughout China) were very hard. Basically a mattress with no inner springs on a wooden platform. In the morning while eating breakfast we were greeted with Christmas songs. One of them a soul version of Silent Night or Silver Bells or something like that, sung in Chinese. It was, after all, October 16th so I guess it all makes sense in some other worldly Zen sort of way.
Guilin was very hazy, humid and warm. The area around the hotel was very nice and scenic with a small, serene lake across the street. We spent only one night at the Bravo.

Before breakfast Raylene & Bob explored the grounds and watched some ladies doing their morning exercises by the lake. Group exercise is a common practice in China.

After breakfast we boarded a bus with our two local guides, Henry and Steve, who supplied us with bottled water every day, the tap water is not drinkable for westerners. They taught us a couple of phrases in Chinese and we headed out about 5 km to the northwest of downtown Guilin to the Reed Flute Cave.

----------------------------Our guides Henry-----------and Steven----------

The Reed Flute Cave is a huge cave about 750 ft. deep. It was discovered during the Tang Dynasty (618 – 907) and is the largest cave in Guilin. Ludi Cao (reed grass) grows in front of the cave and can be used to make wonderful flutes. This was what gave the cave its name. The reed grass covered the entrance to the cave, so the people of the area used this cave for many centuries as a hideout in times of war or trouble.
Since there were lots of stairs to climb to get to and from the cave as well as on the inside, we decided to hire two young men with a sedan chair to carry mom throughout this visit. She was like the 'Dowager Empress'.

We were traveling with a very nice group of people, about 32 in all. Everyone was amazed that mom could make this trip at 93 years of age. It wasn't long before everyone was all calling her 'grandma'. They whole group became protective and would all watch out for her. Inside the cave everything was all illuminated with colored lights. We only saw a small portion of the cave.

Upon exiting the cave there was just time for a pit stop and a few more photo ops.

Then it was off to the bus again, past all the very persistent little souvenir hawkers, and we were on our way about two hours south of Guilin to Longji and the largest group of rice terraces in the world. We would be spending the night at a hotel in the terraces near the top of the mountain known as the Dragon's Back Rice Terraces. They cover an area of 66 sq. km. (about 16,308 acres) and span an altitude between about 984 feet and about 3,608 feet. Their construction first started about 800 years ago in the Yuan Dynasty and they were completed in the Qing Dynasty.

On the way we stopped and had lunch at a restaurant in the Huangluo Red Yao village.

The Yao are one of the many ethnic minority peoples. There are about 2.6 million Yao people. They are one of the larger minority ethnic groups in China. Most Chinese, about 91.6%, are of are of the Han majority ethnic group.

The Red Yao village is renowned for their love of singing and the long hair of it's women (they hold a Guinness World record). They cut their hair only once in their life, when they are around 18 years old. That hair is kept and is twisted in with their hair and wrapped around their heads in a sort of turban shape. While we eating the ladies sang to us.

Afterword they lead us down by the riverbank where they would demonstrate how they wrap their hair.

To see a video of the ladies taking their hair down and then showing how they put it up again,
click on the mediafire.com link below.

It is really quite interesting and worth the effort.

http://www.mediafire.com/?ajxtqtunmor

If link doesn't work:
1-copy and paste into browser and
2-when page opens click on 'click here to start download'.
3-Save the file to your desktop or wherever you want to save it.
4-After download is complete play it in the play of your choice: Windows Media Player, VLC, Real Player, GOM, DivX, Quick Time player...)

After the demonstration we returned to the bus to head up the mountain to the rice terraces.

• Longji
  (coming soon)