Today we took a tour to the Longsheng terraced rice fields.

It took almost 3 hours to reach the beautiful 600 year old village of Pingan.

On the way we stopped off at the Yao village, or the long hair village as it’s become known as.

All the women have incredible long hair in fact they only ever cut it once and that’s on their wedding day.

Our guide also told us they wash their hair in the rice water so in summer it can smell quite bad.

We decided,along with the other 4 European travellers on the tour,not to pay for the show so unfortunately we have no photos of the long hair.

It took us about an hour of walking up hill to reach the best viewing point for the rice fields.

On the way up we stopped for lunch,there was many interesting things on the menu, like frog rat and snake.

We tried the special rice that is cooked in a bamboo stick 🙂

The weather today was typical for here hot and humid, feeling almost tropical, so it was a very sweaty walk.

Well worth it though for the fantastic views, so nice to be out in the countryside too.

Advice for anyone else going is take the local bus out to Longsheng then change bus for Pingan but be warned they speak no english.

Stay the night in Pingan then have a local guide and do a days walking.

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As the weather was so overcast with lots of smog making visibility poor, we decided to give Mt Huashan a miss 🙁

So instead we started the day with a bike ride round the 14km city wall

Finally I got Geoff on a tandem something I have wanted to do for a long time and it was great fun too 🙂

Then we set off on foot to find the big goose pagoda where I had read they had the biggest dancing fountains show in Asia, with a show every night at 9pm

Although on the Internet it says the show is every hour.

We arrived at 4pm after a good 90 min walk which had taken us down some interesting roads, which included the pet Market

I also came close to having my things pinched as some kid managed to open my bag while it was on my back 🙁 luckily i disturbed him so off he ran with out getting anything.

All my stuff was in a dry sac inside my bag which I think saved the day

The pagoda was very beautiful and 7 floors high, of course we could not resist going in and climbing to the top

We then had a long wait as the dancing fountains show was at 9 pm

Luckily it was well worth the wait as the show was spectacular and went on for a good 30 mins

Amazingly you can actually stand between the fountains, you get a bit damp but it all adds to the fun

Then it was back to the hostel to pack as it’s time to move on

This time we are flying to Guilin as the train journey would have been 27 hours

Now at Guilin airport where Hamande wanted to charge. £6.80 for a coffee 🙁

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Another day of torrential rain 🙁

So we abandoned our plans to go visit the terracotta army.

Instead we made plans for the remainder of my stay in china.

No more long train journeys for me,as flights have been booked 🙂

As the weather was so bad it seemed a perfect opportunity to have another massage.

Geoff picked a traditional Chinese massage and I went for the more gentle ( or so I thought ) European massage.

We then indulged ourselves by having foot massages.

I am beginning to realise when it comes to massages sometimes there is no gain with out pain.

When I have had all the toxins flushed from my body there will be no pain.

So far we have had 5 massages and I can already feel the benefits.

Especially from the foot massages,my permanent sore toe has never felt better and I can bend it with out pain, which is amazing.

So let’s see how many more massages I can squeeze in before I return home.

Tomorrow it’s the terracotta army come rain or shine 🙂

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Location:Nanguangji St,Xi’an,China

Well we arrived in Datong during a monsoon.

10 mins after arriving the roads had turned into rivers.

Thankfully by morning it had stopped.

Our next challenge was to get ourselves to the yungang caves from Datong,a town where hardly anyone speaks English.

After not having much luck with the buses we ended up taking a taxi there 🙂 then got the bus back.

The buddah’s at the caves were amazing 🙂

We also got a quick visit to the hanging monastery another amazing place.

Then it was time to move on to Xian.
Which meant we had a 16 hour train journey to look forward too

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Now at Beijing west train station

It’s an experience in it’s self 🙂

Catching the train to Datong.

A 7 hour train journey on a hard seat, not too sure what to expect.

Looking at the amount of people waiting for the train this looks like it’s going to be a very interesting journey.

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