Throwing away the guide book

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Reflecting a long held desire to visit China my guide book dates back to 2007。 Stupidly I didn‘t think that much would have changed over the past three years 。 As a consequence there have been a number of occassions where I have led us on a wild goose chase to visit musuems which have closed or to eat in a restaurant which has been knocked down。

While having out of date information is frustrating it has led us to be less reliant on the word of the guidebook than we might otherwise have been, so much so the last week has been spent visiting places that aren’t even listed...

This has resulted in;

1) once in a life time experiances such as sitting on a roof top in a village called Likeng watching the funeral procession for an old woman go up and down the river accompanied by box upon box of fire crackers which to the uninitiated funeral goer sounds like machine gun fire.

2) challenges to my digestion that I would prefer not to re-live such as the miscommunication which resulted in a live chicken being plucked, slaughtered and boiled in front of me and then being set down for me to eat while all around came to watch my reaction.

3) Sharing sights with the people that live there and no one else - such as strolling through the Lingyan caves and swimming in the river a Qinghua much to the amusement of the local children.

4) and finally wondering if we will ever get up the hill with three adults on a motorbike - tom， me and the driver... since then I have actually witnessed a family of five on one bike so I suppose I shouldn't have worried ???

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Photos

mind the bats
these little fellas were living in someones house

Comments

[Joanna]

Bats
Creatures that I know I should think are sweet, but when confronted by that photo almost shrieked...