Had breakfast with Alison, John and Donna at Minnie Mao’s (funny name!). I had a wonderful club sandwich which was perfect, even with a crispy toast (the toast here is for some reason always soft). Then the three of them went for a massage, while I went on an outing with a few of the others. We had rented a guide, a very sweet girl (there are guides everywhere in Yangshuo, angling for business, but not everyone is reliable), a truck and a truckdriver. The truck is of the same kind as the tractors, only with a larger and different “house” on the back, with a roof and a row of seats on each side. Inside the driver’s cab you can see all the wires, and the motor also has no cover. The driver actually was cranking up something on the motor to start the car. Our destination was Moon Hill, a limestone pinnacle which is famous for its moon-shaped hole. On our way there we drove through villages and fields on narrow, bumpy roads. The room we were sitting in was working as a combined sauna and butt-massage. Sometimes we stopped to walk for a stretch, looking at the different plants we were seeing etc. We saw rice, corn, melons, peanuts and other things I don’t remember the names of. The guide showed us a few plants found at the side of the road, like one used by the locals to rub into the skin to use as insect repellent. It actually smelled like the ones we can buy in stores back home.

When we got there we had to pay a small fee as usual, this time 9 Yuan, and then we walked towards the top of the Moon Hill – more stairs. We had sellers follow us like at the Great Wall, but this time it wasn’t as organised. It was a tough trip to the top, even though it only took about half an hour. Mainly because it was so hot and humid. The clothes were clinging to my body, I couldn’t have been more wet in a shower. At one point I thought it had started raining, but it turned out it was only sweat dripping from my hair. But it  was fun to get up there. We didn’t climb all the way to the ”top of the moon”, but were satisfied with climbing to the hole, and admire the fantastic view. And taking pictures, of course. The Chinese claim that the valley below is the most beautiful place on earth, and they may not be too far from the truth. Then we walked down, that was easy. When we got down the driver was waiting for us, the guide was preparing lunch for us in her home in Moon Hill village as part of the trip (or rather in her brother’s home as it turned out).

We sat down at the table and drank the usual green tea while she was getting the lunch ready. We made trips out into the kitchen to see how she cooked. It was a very simple kitchen, with grey brick walls, but it obviously contained everything she needed to make a great meal. It was impressive to see the technique she had. And the food was really good. She had some orange flowers that she put stuffing in and filled, small green paprika with stuffing, some sort of pancake dough which she put in little circles in the wok, put the stuffing in, folded and fried them till they were golden. Also several courses with meat, chicken and vegetables.

She told us that 10 people lived in the house, which was 85 m2. Her brothers had two children each, it seems farmers can be granted the right to have more than one child (and so can people from minority groups). She told us that she had owned part of the family land, but that this land went back to the brothers when she got married. As we were sitting there a very cute little dingo-like dog with a curly tail was sniffing around our feet. The guide then told us that there are three kinds of dogs in China: “pet-dogs”, “working-dogs” and “eating-dogs”. The one we had been admiring was an “eating-dog”, and they are usually eaten when they are about one year old. After the meal we decided that we didn’t want to make any more excursions (like visiting one of the caves in the area), but that we instead wanted to take a stroll around the village before heading back to Yangshuo. So she showed us around, obviously proud of her village. It must be a relatively rich one, because we could se several new houses. They even had a proper road through the village, but that was only because the road to a cave goes through the village. But not everyone was as affluent, you could see that quite clearly when you walked past the houses and sneaked a peak inside. Dark, earth floors etc. Again several people was outside airing their water buffaloes. I am sure they must be coming or going somewhere, but they always remind me of people airing their dogs, only the collar going through the nostrils instead of round the neck. Some of them had a kid tagging along (the water buffaloes, that is).

Then more butt-massage in the hot truck on the way home. Then in the shower, and then back out again to look around and also do some more shopping. I have among other things bought some CD’s. There are several music shops here selling CD’s (pirate copies, of course) from 10-20 Yuan. You could listen to the CD’s in the stores, and they seemed OK.

In the evening we all went for dinner to Minnie Mao’s. Several of the cafes show Hollywood movies in the evenings, at Minnie Mao’s they were showing Mission Impossible II. That wasn’t really a big success, because the movie was making too much noise to talk, and the talking was making too much noise to see the movie. After dinner I went with a few of the others to a more quiet cafe to watch Next Best Thing. Not a good film!

When Alison and I got back to the hotel around midnight, there was a cockroach on Alison’s bed. Being the brave soul that I am, I jumped up on my own bed, as far away from the beast as possible. Alison, on the other hand, grabbed a shoe and went to work. Unfortunately she missed, and the cockroach managed to escape under the desk and she couldn’t find it. After that she went to the bathroom, and said I had to kill it if it showed up again. Fortunately it didn’t, maybe thanks to the noise I made with my feet to make sure it wouldn’t… As soon as Alison came back into the room I stopped making the noise, and the cockroach came scuttling out form underneath the desk so Alison could go in for the kill. That night I had a dream that could aptly be called The Revenge of the Cockroaches, where the cockroach clan gathered to finish off the white giants. (”You killed our little brother, you bastards. He was the poet of the family, and you just squashed him – like a bug. Attaaaaaaaaaaaaack!”) Did I mention that I don’t like cockroaches?