It was our own fault, though. You see, we'd gotten a little cocky.

Months ago from the comfort of our living room, we'd planned on ending our China leg with a visit to Yangshou, the lengendary backpacker hangout in southern China. Yangshou doesn't really count as China. It's all western cafes that serve pizza, real coffee, cold beer, and that show American movies all day. It's in a beautiful setting, up against the Lijiang river and surrounded by towering limestone peaks. We had figured that traveling in China would be so difficult that we'd need a break before tackling Vietnam.

In fact, the opposite was true. Traveling through China turned out to be so easy that -- as we sat in our hotel in Kunming deciding what to do for the next week -- we hungered for more of the "real China." We had just come from Dali, the second most famous backpacker hangout in China, and we were a little disappointed by it. Not turned off really, it's just that we didn't insert ourselves into the middle of China just so we could hang out and drink beer with a bunch of Germans. So, thumbing through our guidebooks we came upon an obscure reference to two towns in Guangxi province -- Longsheng and Sanjiang.

These towns seemed to offer what we were looking for. They were in the heart of terraced rice farming land, the kind of thing you think of when you think of China. They were off the main tourist route and should be a quiet break before Hanoi. Perfect! Just what we were looking for! We decided we'd do these towns like true adventurers, then hit Yangshou for a while to do laundry, Internet, and all the other necessities of a modern life on the road.

We took a quick 1-hour flight to Guilin (saving a 30-hour train ride), then a minibus into the city of Guilin itself (what a dump), where the driver dropped us off in the middle of a major intersection that was under construction. We had left Kunming's clear dry weather and entered the steaming lowlands. It was like flying from Bozeman Montana to the Florida Everglades. We threw on our backpacks and started wandering around, trying to find the bus station. Within seconds our clothes were soaked with sweat that probably won't dry until we leave southeast Asia months from now.

We got lucky and found the station, paid our $1.20, and hopped aboard a local bus for the 4 hour ride into the mountains. If you're like me, the word "bus" conjures up an image of a large coach-style bus, like a Greyhound or the thing you take to the ski area as a kid on Saturday mornings. But that's not a local Chinese bus. Instead, think VW Bus, but slightly bigger. It's rickety, rounded, and it has a few seats surrounding a wide aisle, where you can really pack the people in.

Like all local bus rides it took 1/2 hour to go the first 3 blocks. The driver eases along, barely above idle, hoping to pick up more passengers on the way out of town. Invariably, he finds the passengers, and although we left the station with just 5 or 6 people on board we soon have 15 or 20. Like all local bus rides we stop for gas on the edge of town. Then, finally, we're really underway. Underway, that is, except for the frequent stops to pick up or drop off more passengers. Like all local bus rides we carry interesting cargo. One guy had 3 huge mesh bags filled with 30-40 live ducks. This got thrown on top of the bus, on top of everyone's packs. Thank god ours were down below. Like all local bus rides we hit road construction, winding mountain roads, and were choked by cigarette smoke.

But despite all that we enjoyed our drive. It's on these local bus rides that you really get to see China up close and personal. We breathed it in, sweat right up against it, and felt it splattered all over our faces.

I think these local busses are something akin to the river boats that plied American rivers 150 years ago. They are the sole means of transport out of town, the link to civilization. They shuttle everyone and everything that needs moving. They work there way up and down narrow rivers of concrete, winding through small villages with villagers that sit by the road waiting for the busses to appear.

Too bad the ride took us to Longsheng, the dirty hellhole I mentioned at the start of this dispatch. Near town there was supposed to me an 800 meter mountain with rice terraces from bottom to top. That was why we'd come. But lying on our box spring -- who knows what happened to the mattress -- and kept awake by the construction project across the street that went on until midnight, we resolved to get out of town as soon as we awoke the next morning. Our chance came sooner than we expected, because they began slaughtering ducks just outside our window at 4:30 a.m. and slaughtering ducks is not a quiet affair.

We walked to the bus station and caught the first bus to Sanjaing. After three hours we reached Sanjaing and transferred to an even smaller bus for the one hour drive to Chenyang, our destination.

When we finally arrived here in Chenyang there was nothing. A good kind of nothing. No cars, no cell phones, no town, no bad hotels. No karaoke (no electricity!). Nothing. Just a small farming village inhabited by the Dong, the local minority. There was a winding river dotted with waterwheels and covered bridges and there was a small guesthouse with creaky wooden floors and a balcony overlooking the river. It was perfect.

We dropped off our bags at the guesthouse and then set out to explore the area. First we wanted an up-close look at those waterwheels. We'd seen them all along the river for the last 30 minutes of our drive and there were 3 stationed just outside our room. The waterwheels varied in size from about 10 feet in diameter to 30 feet. They were shaped sort of like a ferris wheel but instead of carriages for people they had hollow bamboo tubes that scooped up water from the river and then dumped it into a trough at the top. From there, hollowed out logs carried the water into the rice fields. Ingenious little devices! Over dinner while talking to our host I learned that they've made entirely of bamboo and can last up to 10 years.

Next Sarah and I set off to explore the village. It was harvest time, so many of the locals were working the fields, entirely by hand of course. They cut each stalk of rice individually then tied them into neat bundles. These were loaded into baskets and carried on a stick across the shoulders back into the village, where they were hung out to dry in the barns. Grain that was farther along in the process had already been shucked [insert correct term here] and then spread out in a thin layer over the town square to bake in the sun. On one off the square was a wooden drum tower where old men were playing cards.

Out of nowhere we heard some loud, sharp retorts. Our American minds said "gunfire." It was silent, then we heard a few more. Then more again. Just as scenes from "Deliverance" were starting to dance through our minds, a parade of villagers came into view. First the women. Each carried the ubiquitous stick and baskets across her shoulders and all carried exactly the same thing. Both baskets were filled with rice, and on top of the rice were 3 eggs and a dead chicken. Then came the men. They carried a whole assortment of bundles and packages. Finally, two men stumbled along with a whole pig hanging by its feet from the stick between their shoulders. Later, we learned this was their version of a baby shower, bestowing these gifts on a couple who had just had their first child.

We dropped down to the rice fields below the village and followed the river upstream, walking on the thin grass walls that separated the terraces. We passed a schoolyard and three ornately covered bridges. As I looked out over the fields and saw the farmers working the rice it looked -- well -- it just looked so darn Chinese. Strange that the most "chinese" places we'd seen were these minority villages while Han-central (Beijing, Xi'an, Guilin) looked so western.

Our afternoon ended with a hike up a nearby hill to gain a vantage out over the countryside. We saw small clusters of Dong houses dotting the hillsides in every direction. Rice fields covered the entire valley and rose in narrow fingers up the mountains. The little river twisted and snaked from village to village. Four or five hazy ridges of mountains faded into the distance.