This was going to be our day of rest. We had been going full-throttle for weeks, always running to catch a bus, take a hike, see a temple. Today things would be different. We would take a vacation day.

Eventually we pushed the mosquito-netting aside and crawled out of our beds. We made our way downstairs for breakfast and took an hour or two to sip our tea and stare out at the river. In a brief flash of motivation we asked our host to suggest a short walk, and he told us that just a valley over were two Dong villages that were unserviced by roads. They were the real deal -- just subsistence farmers working their terraced rice fields as they had for centuries.

We ambled out the door of our guesthouse, wound our way around a hill, then dropped into a small valley with a beautiful creek running down the middle. The hills were bright green with lush foliage and the valley was lined with golden rice fields. Farmers worked the fields, harvesting rice stalks that were bent completely over from their heavy grain. They worked in small groups. Two or three farmers cut the plants and another one fed the harvested crop into a small thrashing machine operated by a foot pedal. Both men and women shared the work.

Before long, we reached a village that clung to a small hill above the fields. Their houses were huge; what the Naxi ethnic group back in Yunnan province accomplished with courtyards, these Dong farmers accomplished with sheer size. The giant houses were made entirely of wood and seemed to be combination living quarters, barn, storage, kitchen, silo, the works. The houses leaned sharply, like grade school parallelograms.

We explored the village for a while. At the top of the hill was a drum tower and a small open square. Some men were working a makeshift lumberyard, just a circular table saw powered by a smoking motorcycle engine.

We came down from the hill and continued following the small creek upstream. At this point our path, which had been about three feet wide, narrowed to 8-10 inches. It seemed too small to lead to the other village that our guesthouse owner said was 1-2 hours ahead, but it was such a gorgeous area that we thought we'd wander some more regardless. We passed a spring, more rice fields. More villagers farming. The Dong women weren't as colorfully dressed as the Naxi. Each just wore a blue tunic that buttoned Star Trek style down the side.

After an hour we stopped in the shade of a small covered bridge. We lazed there for a while. Sarah snapped a few photos. We figured we would turn and head back to our guesthouse for an afternoon of relaxing on the balcony. From the path, behind us, some said "Hello" and we yelled "hello" back. We hear it so much that our reply has become second nature, we can do it sound asleep. But then the voice behind us said "Where from?"

This was a fairly serious display of English, so we turned to see whom we were talking to.

It was a young Chinese couple. They were about 25-30 years old and were dressed like city people, not like the local Dong farmers. He had dress pants and a dirty white polo shirt. She had black pants and a blazer and was even wearing high heels.

"United States," we said.

They didn't understand. I tried, "USA."

Nothing.

I had no choice but to get fancy on them. "Mei-guo," I said. America, one of the few Chinese words Sarah and I had learned.

They smiled. "Ahhhh! Mei-guo," they said with the correct pronunciation.

We smile. "Yes. Mei-guo. America. Mei-guo."

So far this was a fairly typical conversation. At this point our new friends would usually say "bye-bye" and we'd never see them again. But they didn't leave. We all just stood there, smiling and nodding. As the minutes ticked by, it wasn't clear what they were up to. Sarah and I knew we had an audience, so as we stared out over their valley we tried to wear looks of reflective appreciation.

After what seemed like minutes, and with much thought, he said, "You follow."

I glanced at Sarah. You hate to even let paranoia creep into your minds at a time like this, but we were in the middle of nowhere and we had no idea who these people were. We didn't know if this was the beginning of some kind of scam, or worse, if they had some buddies hiding in the trees up ahead who would. . . well, something worse.

In travel, you come to these decision points where you know you're either going to get screwed or else you're going to have a great experience. I shrugged my shoulders at Sarah -- a "why not give this a go" kind of a shrug -- and she nodded "OK."

"Yes!" I said with a big smile. We followed.

The trail continued along the valley floor for about 20 minutes. The valley narrowed and narrowed and eventually ended at a beautiful little waterfall. Our trail started switchbacking up the left wall of the valley, tending generally towards the top of the waterfall. It was a steep rocky trail. I don't know how the young lady made it up in her dainty high heels.

About 20 minutes into the climb, they stopped suddenly. "We stop!" he said. So we stopped.

He offered us some oranges and we accepted. That was a good sign. Then he made a "let's take a picture" motion, so I got out my camera and took some pictures of us all. That was a good sign, too. Normally I don't think muggers -- even camera happy chinese muggers -- take steps to document themselves.

"We go!" he said. So we went.

The trail kept going up, farther than I expected. By this point we'd thoroughly abandoned any thought of finding that second village, but we figured maybe we were going to an interesting lookout or something. Who knows.

The four of us broke out into a high hanging valley. This was much twistier and narrower than the lower valley. A few rice fields ran along the bottom, though not as many as we'd seen below. We rounded a corner and saw a few Dong farmers come into view. They smiled and waved. Another good sign. Witnesses.

We rounded one more bend, and there, improbably, was a village set up on a steep slope. No road, not even a ox-cart path, connected it with the outside world. If our little guesthouse was in the middle of nowhere, then we were now precisely 2 1/2-hours-from-nowhere. And you geographical mathematicians out there will know that 2 1/2-hours-from-nowhere has an even higher degree of nowhere-ness than nowhere itself.

The young man we were following shouted to a couple that was bent over a rice paddy across the small valley. They shouted back. A conversation ensued that involved lots of laughter. We laughed, too, though I'd guess we were the butt of the joke. We walked on a little farther, starting up the hill to the village itself. Once again our host stopped and turned. "You lunch my house," he said.

This was another decision point, but it didn't take us long. The opportunity to lunch with Dong farmers in a remote village on a mountain in southern China doesn't present itself very often when you live in Seattle, so we immediately smiled and heaped "yes's" and "thank you's" on our Host and Hostess. He and Her smiled broadly.

We walked up past a few hillside outhouses that were leaning a good 30 degrees, past some immense farmhouses, and finally came to one right at the top of the hill.

"My house," Host proudly said.

We walked up the staircase on the outside and entered the second floor. This house, like all of them, was made of rough, dark timber. We stepped into a dark open balcony-type room that wrapped around the entire house. A wall about 3 feet high ran around the balcony, but above that it was just open all the way up to the ceiling. This seemed to be their main living room, though the only furniture was a few wooden benches, a small low table, and really small stools, maybe 6 inches tall. Bundles of hay and rice were laying about. Old newspapers had been stapled to the walls at a kind of wallpaper. A cool breeze blew in off the mountain.

In the center of the house was the kitchen, where a few black pots and a wok hung over a fire pit set into the stone floor. Upstairs was roughly the same design, but instead of a kitchen there were several small bedrooms in the middle of the house.

Our Host disappeared into a dark back room. There was a quiet conversation, and a short time later he re-appeared. Behind him came Grandma. She was old and shuffled along, bent full-over at the waist. But she had a big smile for us and was sassy enough to scold her grandson for letting our bags sit on the floor. He immediately snatched them up and put them on a bench. She was happy with that.

We sat there on a long bench with Grandma while Host and Hostess went about their business. A Teenager appeared for a while. He ambled in, looking cool, as if big-nosed white people were always hanging out with his grandma. He sat down on the bench, too, sort of looking away from us. Then, without trying to appear too friendly, he shared some of the nuts he had been carrying in his pockets. Within minutes we were all laughing as he tried to teach us how to crack the shells with our teeth. You had to bite the top off then peel down the sides. Mainly I just sprayed nut-shards and nut-dust all over Grandma.

Teenager left and Host re-appeared. We had a little phrase book that we were all flipping through, trying to communicate. Host tapped me on the shoulder to show me something in the book. First he pointed to "supermarket," and then he pointed to "meat." He motioned that I should follow him. So off we went to the supermarket while Sarah stayed behind with Grandma.

It was a short 10 minute walk through the village. On the way I attracted quite a crowd, primarily teenage girls who stood 15 feet away and giggled. Oh yeah, Geoff! You still got that magic!

The "supermarket" turned out to be a single wooden table in the town square with three small slabs of meat fermenting in the hot sun. One was, I think, pork, the other beef, and the third was a bundle of guts and organs tied neatly together with a stalk of grass. Of course Host walked up and pointed straight to the pile 'o guts. A delicacy. I smiled but couldn't help pointing to the pork. We got both.

When we returned, the house was busy. Hostess was chopping vegetables and building a fire under the pots, and two fit looking middle-aged people had appeared -- Mom and Dad. They might have been around 45, but they looked so healthy and trim it was hard to tell. He had a big smile and shook my hand with a firm grip. She was slightly more reserved, but also very welcoming.

They washed for lunch while we pulled the small table into the center of the room. It stood about 2 feet off the ground, matching the little 6 inch stools. Steaming bowls of meat and vegetables began arriving from the kitchen. Chopsticks were brought in. Someone made up a bowl for Grandma and brought it to her room. The rest of us sat down around the table -- Mom, Dad, Host, Hostess, Sarah, myself, and some guy that was either an Uncle or the Butcher, I couldn't figure out which.

Just as we were about to begin, Dad poured everyone a glass of tea from a clay pot and raised his glass in a toast. As my hand touched my glass, a wave of terror spread through my body. It was cold. Cold meant it was water, not tea. Whatever was in that glass hadn't been boiled.

Now I don't speak any Dong-ese, but I from my brief look around their village I can tell you that they'd only need one word for "sewer," "drinking water," and "laundry room" because they are all basically the same thing. But here was a table full of smiling people toasting me, so what could I do? I raised the glass and prepared to spend the next week fighting Sarah for toilet space.

With a tight fake smile I tossed back the drink.

"Eureka!" It wasn't water after all! It was rice wine!

This was a mixed blessing. On the plus side, the alcohol should kill the germs. On the minus side. . . well, it was rice wine.

Lunch was excellent. Hot and fresh, seasoned just right. The Uncle/Butcher kept pushing the fried guts my way, and I nibbled politely. It really didn't taste too bad, and later, in the privacy of our room, Sarah confessed to actually liking the intestines. Everyone else at the table politely held back to let Sarah and I eat our fill. Not until we slowed down did they take larger portions.

The funniest part about lunch, though, was the toasting. I guess Dong etiquette doesn't allow you to drink without toasting first, and if everyone toasts you have to drink. The result was a toast every minute or two over the course of the one hour meal. Glasses were filled and re-filled. Toasts got louder and louder. Any time Sarah or I would so much as glance in the direction of glass, they would assume we wanted a drink and so one of them would toast. There was a lot of toasting.

Naturally, towards the end of lunch I was really getting into the spirit of it. I whipped out my phrase book, help up my glass, and tried to read some long drawn-out sentence that is supposed to mean "Thank you for the lovely meal. Your kindness, generosity, and hospitality shall never be forgotten." But me reading this thing syllable by syllable at that point in the meal was hopeless. They stared at me with a profoundly confused look for just a second, and then cheered and smiled, if nothing else they were appreciative of my effort. Then I passed the book around and showed them what Chinese words I'd just massacred, and they toasted again.

After lunch Dad was in the mood for some music, so got his traditional Dong flute down from the shelf. It was a multiple tubed device that played sounds on both in- and ex-hales. He played us several tunes. I couldn't quite pick out the melody, but there's no arguing with the fact that is was lively.

With the concert over, people slowly drifted away. Hearty handshakes were exchanged. Mom and Dad went back to the field. Uncle/Butcher went back to his Wife/Cow. Hostess went to wash the dishes. Host grabbed our day packs and asked us to follow. He went up to his room, set our bags on a bed, and invited us to spend the night in their village. It was a very nice offer and we wished we could take him up on it, but unfortunately our main packs were waiting for us down below in our guesthouse. We had to be going.

Host walked us to the edge of the village, where we waved our "goodbyes". Sarah and I desperately wished we spoke his language so we could express to him our heartfelt appreciation. I could tell that he too was looking for some words. Instead, we had to make do with smiles and hand gestures and pats on the back and bows and simple "thank you's."

We reached the bottom of the hill and turned for a final wave goodbye. He waved back, smiling. As we turned to go he yelled one more thing.