It’s Golden Week here in China. Apparently even the WSJ posted a story about the traffic jams that result when a nation of 1.4 billion people are on holiday. Of course, Golden Week doesn’t mean everyone is excused from work. The farmers are busy harvesting rice from the golden fields and anyone in the tourism business, a growing segment of the Chinese economy, is working overtime.

For the past three days we have been in Guilin. An area of southern China known for its karst mountain landscape. Lauren was here in March and liked the area despite being sick so I had a feeling it would be especially nice. It was.

Our first day we drove to the top of a series of rice terraces in Longsheng. The people here have been farming these terraces for more than 1000 years. Next we boarded a boat (along with dozens of other tourists) heading down the Li River. Andy got a kick out of watching the parade of boats and their tourists photographing everything. We met a nice couple from Boston who have traveled extensively so we enjoyed the scene together as we made our way to Fuli. After lunch, we took a bike ride through farming villages and then drove to Yangshou. Yangshou is a resort town and people from all over southern China were coming here to holiday, making West Street a throng of people. The best thing about Yanshou for us was a show staged by Sanjie Lu the Director of the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony called “Impressions”. It was the telling of a love story and featured a stunning set design – its stage set within the Li River and the karst mountains lit behind – and a perfectly choreographed and synchronized cast of 400 actors.

Today marks a break for us. We booked our Beijing to Guilin trip at a tourists’ pace with three days in each place. Moving around this often was fine and we enjoyed what we saw but we are ready to get back to the slower pace and deeper experiences. We land shortly in Shanghai where there is a more open internet policy and for the next seven days I will have access (hopefully) to WordPress to post this and upload photos, perhaps even read the NYT.

Our love from the road…