China – Part I

Here is part I of our amazing China Adventure! We really started off with quite a bang. Kristin was such a trooper. She allowed me to travel the way I love to travel.. having no particular destination or anything planned in advanced. I knew that I wanted to make it to Guilin but from there it was all up in the air. So we found a sleeper train that would get us there from Shenzen. And the best part was we had shared a room with 4 other non-english speaking Chinese citizens that would entertain us for the next 13 hours!  Haha! After this incredibly long train ride (smoking allowed inside the train) we woke up to this breath-taking view. Absolutely worth every second! We didnt know where we wanted to go exactly but there were only two ways further into the country side, bus or raft. We opted to take the raft down the river.  Check out the scenery from our raft ride down the Lijiang river headed into Yangshou, Guilin.

That’s right! back packin’ it and all! We had all we needed for the next 10 days right there on our backs!

We discovered that this is only place in the world where you can see Cormorant fishermen in action. Its a type of sport/art form that has a little bit of controversy over its practices although fishermen in this part of the world have been doing it for thousands of years as a means for survival. It has gained more opposition recently as it has gained more attention. I will say this though that I was very surprised at how well the fisherman took care of his birds. They were like his dogs. He even petted them like such. Kind of weird to witness first hand but pretty incredible. A fisherman capitalizing on a one of natures best fishers.