From this particular nowhere, Chengyang, we were traveling down out of the mountains to Guilin and then on to the small town of Yangshou. This would take four separate buses, so we started early. Up at 6:30 and roadside by 7:00.

The first bus to come by was full, but following close behind was an enterprising local who through an artful twist of the blowtorch and a blatant disregard for occupant safety had managed to convert his 3-wheeled motorcycle into a 7-person taxi. It was a slow ride. On the uphills the little engine could barely tow its own weight, let alone ours, and on the downhills our driver cut the power to save gas. He got us to Sanjaing in under an hour though, just in time to catch our three hour local bus to Longsheng.

From there, Sarah and I splurged and spent $2.00 for the "Express" bus rather than $1.30 for the local. We felt like royalty stepping onto that luxury motor coach. From the look in our eyes you'd swear we had just been upgraded to first class on a trans-Pacific 747. The bus was only half-full, smoking wasn't allowed, it had a flight-attendant wearing a red satin sash, and best of all it utilized an advanced technology unknown in the rest of China called 'shock absorbers.' We still bounced as we drove the road construction, but it was a bounce-on-a-mattress-and-giggle bounce.

The only downside of the drive was the guy next to us who kept eating oranges and then puking them all over the aisle. He just kept eating and puking and eating and puking. I wanted to lean over and shout QUIT EATING THE FRICKIN' ORANGES! But he wouldn't have understood, and besides, he would have just puked on me.

The scenery between Guilin and Yangshou is some of the most famous in China. A limestone mountain range has been worn down over the millenia into thousands of individual towering steep peaks, chimneys rising straight up out of the flat plains of rice. Hundreds and hundreds of these things dot the countryside. The closest thing we have in the States might be the formations like Camelback mountain near Phoenix, but these here are taller, narrower, and steeper. And winding its way through all of this is the Li River, a pretty nice river as Chinese rivers go.

Chinese tourists have been coming to this area for years, but in the last 15 years or so the town of Yangshou has become a mecca for backpackers entering or leaving China to Vietnam or Hong Kong. Guilin is a hulking dump of a city, but Yangshuo has everything you could want for a break while travelling. Beautiful scenery, nice guesthouses and restaurants, internet cafes, western food. Most of the action takes place on a small cobblestone street just 3 or 4 blocks long, lined with outdoor cafes and gift shops. All this is set smack dab in the middle of these amazing peaks. Four or five rise straight up in the middle of town. Yangshuo skyscrapers.

Sarah and I intended to stay just 2 or 3 days before heading off to Vietnam, but a variety of circumstances kept us in town. First, I got hit with the first really debilitating case of "intestinal nastiness" of our trip and had to spend a few days in bed, within sprinting distance of the toilet. Second, we found out there were only two trains a week running to Hanoi. Undesirable body excretions aside, it was a really nice place to spend a week.

Within minutes of our arrival we ran into Greg, our American friend that we'd met in Beijing and traveled with in Xi'an. He had arrived a few days earlier, en route to Hong Kong, and had already managed to meet every westerner in town, all of whom were presently seated at his table. We joined the group, and the table continued to grow throughout the evening. It was the usual mix of travellers: Germans, Danes, and Dutch -- of course -- but also a few Aussies, a Kiwi, 2 Norwegians, us 3 Americans, and 2 guys from Britain, both named Russell.

I sat down with the Russells and promptly became embroiled in a heated argument concerning the relative merits of "Rugby League" football versus "Rugby Union" football. This had happened to me once in Sydney, and I knew the best course of action was to remain quiet while the two sides hurled phrases like "bloody poofs" back and forth. I still have no idea what the difference is, but I gather this argument is like a really hooliganesque version of two 50 year old crew cut Americans arguing about the Designated Hitter rule.

The next few days were a wash. Greg went off on a side-trip somewhere, I went to bed, and Sarah snuck in a little gift shopping in between frequent trips to buy me white bread and toilet paper. A few days later we were all back, relatively healthy, and ready to explore the area.

Now, Chinese water -- in all forms -- is generally best avoided. Don't drink it. Don't swim in it. Don't rinse your toothbrush in it. But the Li River looked pretty clean. It didn't reek of sewage and it definitely wound through some gorgeous country, so we decided to rent kayaks and head downstream. We put in just below Yangshuo, heading south. Most of the big tour boats were north of us, so this lower section was just us and the locals. It was a gorgeous four hour paddle. The current wasn't strong, but it was powerful enough help move us along. We passed small villages, people living on boats, fisherman, good moving back and forth. One guy was harvesting river grass using two 10-foot long bamboo poles, giant chopsticks I guess. The sun was out, my kayak didn't leak too badly. It was a great afternoon. My only regret is that we got a late start, so we didn't have enough time to explore the caves and small villages we saw from the river.

The next two days Sarah and I rented bikes to ride around the countryside. The complication with this plan is that it actually requires you to rent and ride a bicycle. A Chinese bicycle. The renting part is easy. Yangshou is lined with touts trying to rent you bikes. You just plop down Y5 ($.60) and off you go. The catch is with the bicycle.

Chinese bikes look deceptively like mountain bikes. Same handlebars. Chain. 2 wheels. Brakes. But your first indication that something is not quite right comes when you grab the handlebars and are nearly toppled over by the weight.

There is only one logical reason these bikes can be so heavy. Heavy-metal isotopes.

My theory is that spent Uranium fuel rods from Chinese nuclear reactors are encased in lead and then molded into bicycle frames. These frames are rented to unsuspecting Westerners, who peddle through rice fields all day, happily pumping their testicles full of radioactive waste. The foreigners (and their radioactive testicles) then return home to weaken the gene pool of their capitalist nations, thus making them soft resistance for the invading Chinese army. The bikes are that heavy.

[This might be an appropriate time to point out that Sarah and I just started taking our Mefloquine. If you notice that the tone of these dispatches becomes increasingly paranoid and psychotic over the next few months, please send me an e-mail telling me to lay off the malaria pills for a while. I'm not ready to jump on the anti-Lariam bandwagon just yet, but I will tell you that within three days of taking my first pill the Vikings lost their first game of the season. You can draw your own conclusions.]

You hop on your bike, glad to have 18 gears since the terrain is hilly and the roads rutted. At the first hill you attempt to downshift but your chain falls off. You pull on the brake, moving the brake pad somewhere within the vicinity of the rim but not actually touching it, but you stop anyway because your tire has just gone flat. You put the chain back on, and through trial and error you learn that you can actually use 3 of the 18 gears. Not bad! Last time it was only 2!

All around you Chinese people are moving in slow, wide sine waves of irregular frequency. This is a fancy way of saying that they are swerving back and forth, unpredictably, and you can't risk passing because they'll either steer you into oncoming traffic or off the road into that green muck that festers in the ditch.

We had a good time, though. Seriously. I think the bikes just added to the character of the place.

Today we took a bus to Xingping and form there a lovely boat ride through the prettiest section of the river. Right now we're laying on the bow of our low metal boat. I'm getting sleepy from the sun on my back.

Life is pretty easy here in Yangshou, but it's not without tough decisions. Pizza or fajitas tonight?