Vacation: Friday

We awoke early to meet our motorcycle driving friends, who were to take us to a scenic mountain nearby. Well, it was a beautiful, if almost surreal trip through the 'Wuyuan' countryside, in Northern Jiangxi province. We soon arrived at an entrance building. We soon realized all the sights in the area were collectively run by the tourist bureau; so we bought the cheapest "3 spot" ticket. It was still expensive. So we roamed through a gorgeous park, which followed a stream up the mountain. Then we did some spelunking in a pretty cool cave and even rode a small motorboat out of the bottom of the cave. Dave and I both thought the required life vests were a little much for the barely idling boats...but then again, barely any Chinese know how to swim, so maybe not too egregious of a safety feature. We then headed back to Qinghua and checked out its historic 800 year old bridge, a small Buddhist temple and the surrounding scenery. This was our third "spot", so we grabbed our bags and hit the motorcycle path to Likeng. Likeng (理坑) was advertised in the guidebook as a gorgeous, authentic village of 300 households. But, it's placement in the guidebook has also made it a bit touristy. Because it is so small, it seems like every other person in town is a tourist. Of course maybe it's just Likeng custom to carry a camera around at all times, or sit by the river and draw sketches of your neighbor's house...but I doubt it. Nonetheless, it was still a fairly primitive, simple, tiny, worn down village and provided a first hand look at historic (and current) village life in China.