31st August 2010
We left for a 6 day trip around the local villages.

30th August 2010
Matang Village
The local people were holding a harvest festival. There was singing and dancing as well as bull-fighting. The water buffalo are taken to the river where they fight each other. The competition lasts the whole day and after a series of rounds one of the bulls is the champion. Many of the bouts are quite short because one of the bulls just decides against fighting and runs away. But others last for the full 5 minutes and the referee decides the winner. In one bout, unbelievably, one bull tossed the other onto its back after they had locked horns and the winner tossed its neck. Incredible – they are so big and heavy.


28th August 2010
Kaili
A small town that is the capital of the local area – lots of local ethnic minorities live here.

We booked a local guide in order to find local villages. We saw Xia huang, Langde and Ziyang – all are beautiful, old traditional places with nice old wooden buildings. We met Miaou people and had lunch with a local family.


27th August 2010
Guiyang museum is really good. It has lots of displays of ethnic minority costume.

26th August 2010
Guiyang
Went to a musical show, but it was disappointing - too much electronic music and miming. The performance was supposed to be folk music.

23rd August 2010
Kaiping
Kaiping is a good base from which to visit the Diaolou. They are towers that were built in the countryside up to the 1930's by returning overseas Chinese. The Diaolou were strongly built and provided them protection from people who would attack them for their money. They were mostly vacated during the Cultural Revolution. They are strongly built of reinforced concrete. Some of them are in the process of renovation although many of them still had original furniture inside, so they are good to visit.

21st August 2010
Guangzhou
We met John Wang our friend from London who is living in Guangzho for a while. He took us for a really good vegetarian meal and then we visited the Shamian island in the Pearl River. It was the base for Europeans before the second world war. The old buildings have been restored and they are great.


20th August 2010
Back to Shenzhen
We took the ferry back to Shenzhen and successfully renewed our Chinese visa in he process so it is good for a further 3 months – although we will not be staying that much longer. Guangzhou is the next place and we are taking the train.


19th August 2010
We went into town and visited the Pawn Museum. It is an actual old pawn shop that still has all the old shelves, counters, record books etc. Then we took a bus to Taipa, the other island of Macao and visited the Macao museum.