You just have to go and experience the minority villages at Ping'an- the rice terrraces just out of Longsheng. A couple of hours bus ride fromt he main station at Longsheng using the Ping'an bus are well worth the ride. You can get very good accomodation at the fields and wonderful food!! We were lucky to get invited by some local women to their village for lunch. A long trek through the picturesque fields to their village and then we were treated to cold- ice cold coke and we awere able to watch them prepare our chicken for lunch along with potatoes, fern fronds, YUMMY- beans and beer! It was so delightfuland and peaceful in the terraces that I did not want to leave!!

A wonderful day riding through the rice fields and remote villages with Esther our guide. For a very good price Esther, we found her in West Street, took us where ever we wanted and showed us the real life of the village people out of the Yangshuo township. It certainly was a memorable day- should have taken sunscreen though as it was gorgeous weather and the singlet top shape on my back stayed with me for weeks after!! Riding through the villages amongst the karst hills, balancing on narrow tracks between the rice fields, stopping in at a small village for lunch- unbelievably amazing!!

Organised by the lovely guide Esther- to be found in West Street- we went out for an amazing bamboo raft ride down the Li River. It is wonderful to get away from the noise and bustle of the town and out in to the country. The two men who Esther organised to take us were fantastic as they did not just take us down the river, they stopped off at alot of places on the way where we got off the raft and followed them along the banks to see a variety of culturally interesting places. Cave paintings at one place, an interesting irrigation system that raised water from the river up three metres to the fields with no machinery used!! An explanation of how the irrigation channels worked- a look at the village life along the river. So the leisurely trip also became a knowledgable experience in to some of the ways of Chinese life. It really is a must do- especially with the rush of the raft over the many weirs that line the Li river and control it's flow!!

I am sure that all parts of the Great Wall have their own special features and attributes that make them worth visiting but our trip to Simitai was a wonder in the making. Apart from the bus ride that saw more than 30 people jammed on to our 18 seater bus and the hairy overtaking of the driver, which was an experience in itself, the Wall at Simitai was indeed a stunning sight. It certainly tests your fitness as some parts are extremely steep . This part of the wall is in a more original condition than the likes of Badaling and that in itself is worth seeing. Parts of the wall have crumbled away and there remains only the walkway winding up the very steep terrain of this area. You can see the towers disappearing off in to the distance. There is a real sense of achievement to have walked on this part of the wall and you should not be put off by the long bus ride from Beijing!! From here you can see for absolutely miles and the peace and quiet of the place- due to few tourists and even fewer birds in the area- are hard to match with the bustle that is often seen on other parts of the wall. You can truly make this a leisurely visit to the Great Wall of China. Make sure you take plenty of water as it is a strenuous climb and they charge a fortune for water on the wall! If you have expended all your strength by the time you walk up you can take a serene ride down on the cable car to be confronted by the stalls at the base- a must have I survived the Wall T Shirt can always be bought here!

A must do visit in Xi'an is to have kebabs in the evening in the muslim quarter. As evening sets in, the muslim quarter comes alive with a plethora of food stalls creeping out on to the streets. The smell of coal burning is everywhere and the kebabs are a delight not to be missed!! All sorts of meats- watch what you get! The smokey coal taste permeates through the street and the kebabs and they are just delicious! While eating them you will have your own free entertainment as you watch the cooks working over the hot coals and then delivering vast handfuls of seering hot kebabs to the tables- a true delight!!