7 Sep 2007 - Xingping, Guangxi Province

I was searching for tranquility …and it seems to have found me. After a 13 hour train ride west to Guilin, I boarded the 1-hour bus to the backpackers’ haven of Yangshuo (where I, but even more evidently the ticket seller, created quite a scene after I chastised him for overpricing the laowai). But one hour in Yangshuo was enough – it was still too big for me, too touristy and too many touts followed my every footstep.

It was the right choice. I’m now in the quiet town of Xingping, nestled amongst the most amazing scenery of karst peaks you could ever imagine and lying along the banks of the Li River. Rows of ancient courtyard houses line the village’s cobbled lanes, old tanned women crouch on their footsteps, an obligatory photo of Mao smiles from the wall behind them. Local farmers pass by carrying meat, live or dead, for sale, the occasional motorbike skidding past, still-live poultry hanging from their handlebars. It’s an arresting scene after Beijing, Hong Kong and Shenzhen.

60 kuai a night grants me a view from my window only eyes could believe – a stretch of old black tiled rooftops resting beneath a skyline of forested karst peaks. It’s simply beautiful. Xingping shuts off its lights after 8, and the streets are quiet if not for the occasional murmur of footsteps fluttering by, just like the cool breeze from the river (..the same river that, combined with the mellow old man selling wares on its bank, has now armed me with my little slingshot.)