My wife Rhona and I went on a three-day hiking trek through the Guangxi province in China.
We asked the tour company to arrange something off the beaten track.They suggested a three-day hiking trlp in the cuangxi provinco in southern China, Yuan, our guide, met us at Guilin airport and drove us high into the mountain region of her birth. We alighted at a small bamboo cutting station where we met Mr pan, who was to be our host for the night in the dlstant village of Jiu Wu.Mr Pan (or poter,as we inevitably dubbed him was soon leading the way along a rocky path, followed by Yuan, my wife Rhona and me, and two packhorses.
 It was tough going for a coupla of middle aged towinles, but Mr Pan held Rhona's hand over the most slippery sectlons while Yuan regalde us with fasci.nating details about local life and legends.
Jiu Wu had the look of an Alplne village, but set in an exwaordinary mosaic of rice paddy terraces that gleamed in the late afternoon sun.
Mr Pan's house was a huge timber structure on thee floors set against the mountainside. Swallows flew in and out of the unglazed windows. Mrs Pan wore the stunning red and black garb of the Yao minority people. She cooked dinner over an opon fire on the earthen floor:pork,bamboo shoots and tender young bracken. That night we slept on pristine linen laid over bare wooden planks.
For the next two days we wallkde along tracks that meandered through a breathtaking landscape of rice terraces and cool forests, we tottered across mountain streams,and stopped to rest and eat in villagers'homes.
On the last day we reached the beautiful but modernised village of ping An, something of a local tourist trap. Below the village lay a road, the first we had seen since neeting Mr Pan. Crocodiles of foreign tourists were being systematlcally parted from their money by gangs of canny Yao traders. It was a different world.
 For three days we had enjoyed the hospitality of subsistence farmers. They in tum had benefited from the small cash income our visit provided. There were some challenging moments, we tottered across mountain streams,and stopped to eat and rest in villagers'homes stop in one village home where we had to manoeuvre around the family pig to reach the tollet.But we were inspired by the beauty of the countryside and by the digni ty of the villagers. It was all so different from the usual Chinese tourist circuit. Within a decadea road will reach Jiu Wu and neighbouring villages. A thousand years of Yao history will effectively come to an end. We will be back before that happens.
Source: the oldit Author: NICK BOWLEY Date: Jul 8, 2007
Read the tour package which Nick and his wife enjoyed.
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