There are any number of ways by which one can be jolted from a daydream. The realisation that a blind man is pummelling away mere inches from your groin is probably the most unsettling of the lot; especially as we hadn't a common language in which I could communicate my apprehension to him. Still, in all fairness he was only doing what I'd paid him to do.

This would constitute an odd day on its own, even had I not been photographed some 2 hours earlier by the Guanxi local press in front of the "moon hill" ploughing a paddy field with a disgruntled water buffalo and plough. Quite what story they were going to illustrate with this photo is beyond me. The fact that they asked Christina to pretend to sow rice seed behind the plough by crumbling up clumps of dried clay and scattering these to the four winds only served to heighten the surreal nature of the scene.

Goin' underground

The morning had passed largely as I would have expected. We met our guide after breakfast, hired a couple of fairly standard bikes and set off into the trackways of Yangshou¹. We cycled past the various fields of rice, sugar cane, mandarin oranges and the like before we got to our first tourist site - the "Buddha" caves. This network of underground passages has been opened up and is now available for guided tours lasting about an hour or so for about 50.-RMB per person. The whole is hot and muddy, but there is an underground waterfall and stream in which to wash yourself off ... only to get all muddy again on the way back out.

Walking on the moon

After this we dried off and cycled to our guide's house for lunch. She (and her mother) cooked us a delicious meal of various local vegetables stir fried and the usual gallons of tea. Then, fed and watered, we cycled on to "moon hill", which is an odd little mountain in the area which has a circular hole right the way through it - which puts the locals in mind of the moon, obviously.

Our guide, rather sensibly, stayed put at the bottom of the hill but we set off in the midday sun to climb the 800 or so steps to the top...about 300 meters above us. We were pursued to the top by one very dogged cold drinks vendor, with her cooler box in tow - and we were very glad of this fact when we got to the top, as in addition to selling us bottles of ice cold distilled water she also showed us which was the better path and took our photo.

We plough the fields and scatter

On trudging down from the summit we found our guide deep in conversation with two besuited gentlemen, one of whom was carrying a large camera. Since the PSB had not been in evidence on this trip I was not concerned, but intrigued none the less. It turned out that they were from the Guanxi press and wished to take our photo..and so they drove us to this field in front of the moon hill. It was at this point that the water buffalo angle was introduced.² So I did my bit for local commerce by being dragged up and down a field by this beastie whilst cameras whirred. I'm not sure I ever got the hang of directing the buffalo³ but if the photos ever turn up we shall know.

The life of Riley

Dusty, sweaty and exhilerated, we cycled back to Yangshou and after a quick shower in our hotel, we set out to find food and a cold beer. Luckily in Yangshou both are in plentiful supply. We actually settled for a French/Vietnamese restaurant...well, when in China...,

Returning from this we passed a shop front advertising "Blind massage". In China you often get typos in shops but we were at a loss to figure out what this meant so we popped our busy noses in...which is how I came to have a blind man give me a full body massage. See - a rational explanation for everything.