April 1, 2007

Happy April Fool's Day! We are in Songjiang...in a Dong minority culture village. It's nuts! We rode almost 90km today! Can you believe that? That, is no april fools joke!

OUr trip is going sooo well. We're having a blast. 2 days ago we flew from Guilin to Guiyang through Guanhzou. That was a long day. We got to Guiyang to see a wedding part arrive! It was soo cool..the bride was greeting everyone and giving all the men cigarettes and lighting them too! HA! We stayed at an amazing Ramada plaza hotel. Soo nice..we even got a non-smoking room! oh yeah! Then yesterday we drove for 6 hours into the countryside. Yeah...that's not a joke either...6 hours. We went through Miao villages which are soo cool b/c it's all hillside/riverside towns that have made 3 story houses with no nails! It's pretty spectacular. Then after the car ride we got out at this tiniest, poorest town center ever. We ate noodle soup while sketchy dogs ran around chasing chickens. The kids were soo cute and were playing hide and seek with me. After out 1st noodle soup lunch experience (there's been one everyday) we got on our bikes...finally and rode about 30km to our hilarious hotel. The ride was nice and I figured out how to use the gears on the bike fast! our hotel last night was really pretty dingy but Dave and I got soo lucky. OUr a/c unit was working so we put in our alarm clock batteries to the remote and got it on! I think we were the only room that had it working..and it was hot! AND..our bathroom was the only one with a western toilet..everyone else had a hole in the ground that doubled as a drain for the shower! Oh my gosh!

My absolutely grossest toilet experience was yesterday...there's tons of toilets on the side of the road that look like wodden shacks assembled hundreds of years ago...maybe they were. But there's a slit between the planks of wood on the ground for the bathroom part and maybe a hole underneath but usually it just drops off the side of the cliff (and you can see down)! It's really gross and I don't think I'll get used to it...but hey..when you gotta go..you gotta go. Anyway, yesterday it was a cement slit in the groud that was super skinny....not always easy for girls to aim like that but pretty hilarious anyway b/c I tried to hold my breath the whole time! haha..yeah..that didn't work at all!

So the food here is absolutely RIDIC! We're going to take a cooking course when we get to Yuangsho at the end of our trip. Seriously..so much flavor and not just spice like thailand although there is a LOT of spice too. Loads and loads of red chili. So that's been an amazing dioscovery for us. Oh yeah!

There's sooo much to write about and it's only the beginning. I really can't believe I didn't die today. My bum was sooo sore from the ride...but it's beautiful. All day we rode alongside a huge river between bamboo and pine tree filled mountains. The weather is goreous and cooler than Thailand....the riding is hard for me but I'm hanging in there. I'm going to be ripped after this trip! WAHOO!

The people are really nice and warm here. There's lots of staring but once you say "hello" and smile there's lots of warm giggles and smiles from the locals. It's great. A really amazing experience....the kids are the cutest and I've had fun playing around with them. We're picking up some chinese..what else. Hmmm....tomorrow is a 50km day (easy) but more hilly than today and man, that is going to kick my hiney! But I can't wait! We better go to bed..long day tomorrow. Today we had started at 8:30am and didn't get to our hotel until 5:30pm!

Can't think of anything else for now....I'll try to write in a few days or so!!!! YAYAYAYAYAY!