Guangxi: Yangshuo and Back
On a bike trip outside of Yangshuo, we discover a natural karst formation.
It's so unusual, it almost looks like some sort of insect, perhaps. "Maybe."
How's *that* for some challenging farmland?
Modest country house and man walking home.
Adobe abode with a grinder on the roof.
House made from brick is slightly more Big-Bad-Wolf-proof.
Notice the huffing and puffing damage on the corner of the adobe abode.
Country bridge and unused bamboo rafts during the off-season.
Transportation yinyang. There! I've said "yinyang" again!
But really, the balance, I... I had to.
Either that or a bicycle fulcrum below an invisible lever.
Moon Hill is a pleasant stair climb up among the pinnacles of karst.
As your position changes, the arch appears to be a full, half, or crescent moon.
Bamboo leaves overlay the moon arch.
Foliage fringes the view of surrounding townships and a sea of karst ripples.
A hot air balloon bobs, anchored to the ground.
Arch at the top, featuring stalactites.
Stalactites and Trevor's hat fringe fit together like Stone gears on the Mayan calendar.
Trevor blending in with the stones at the top of the peak above the moon arch.
The end of our Yunnan-Guangxi adventure drawing nigh.
Back in Xiamen, Trevor gives an American geography lesson to our kids.
His free-hand rendition of all the border bumps and country curves
ingrained in his brain, is quite impressive to say the least.
I can explain.
We curtailed all the "N" bogarting by breaking names down into syllables.
PANCAKE *had* to go through XISHUANGBANNA because of "Xishuangbananapancake."
TIGER, LEAPING, and GORGE had to go together, of course.
PYTHON because we were talking a lot about programming the whole trip.
The debacle on the midleft because the J, Z, X, Q, and V were pretty like that.
WU JIAO and FEN were cheap plays (worth about eight cents) and ZI was one of the
first characters that Trevor learned to recognize. The rest is self-evident, no?
Why we didn't start at the center star is left as an exercise to the reader.
And, as a parting image, a giant mecha-octopus devours unaware businessmen.
(Gulangyu island across the inlet from Xiamen island.)