Early the next day, July 9th, we got up early for a good look round Likeng in daylight. Now, my guide spoke no English at all, which in hindsight was possibly not the best thing in the world. I could have maybe been a little pickier in my choice but, well, I got caught up in events at the time and just had to make the best I could of the situation with my dodgy Chinese. I welcomed the challenge but my Chinese does not extend to history or architecture, making some of his guidance and local knowledge a little obsolete, which was pretty frustrating for the both of us. Fortunately at one house we stooped by was a girl who'd just graduated from school and who offered to come round and explain a few things to me in English. What's more is she had a monkey!!
So we went back to some of the houses and I learnt a bit more about the history of the place - how most of the larger houses were built by rich merchants and imperial officials a few hundred years ago and that others acted as holding pens for local virgins. Young girls in this town were not allowed outside until they were married and instead were kept together in houses where they learnt useful things like sewing and whatnot. They were restricted to the first floor and their only window on the world was from balconies such as the one below.
It was a nice little place but soon we moved on to the next destination. We got off first by a pretty little bridge and walked up a small path to the 'upside-down tree'. This is pretty much what it says it is, and can be seen in the middle of the second picture below, but the how and the why eluded me so it's still a bit of a mystery I'm afraid. The one thing that made sense is that it's old. Very, very old. A lot of the trees in this area are around the 1000 year old mark and it was while here that I realised just how much I missed trees. Lanshan had suffered badly from deforestation but this place was untouched and reminded me so much of home.
After that short stop we got back on the bike and drove a little further up the valley to another village. After passing a water buffalo doing what water buffaloes do best, we began walking up along the little stream further up the steepening valley and into the mountain. I'm not really sure where this was exactly, my guide called it Wuqi Shan, which translates (literally) as 'five-seven mountain', but it was a highlight amongst highlights.
Along the way up the stream we met another local guide who was walking with two Chinese women, from Shanghai and Zhengzhou. They were friendly and spoke a little English too. It was good to spend a little time with some other people so we all agreed to eat lunch together at another local's house. The hightlight of the meal was a ten-year-old fish from one of the village's fishponds. The house-owner went and caught it there and then and weighed it in front of us while it was still alive to give us a price. The live fish was then placed on a block in the courtyard and to my horror the wife picked up a heavy cleaver, turned it over and with the blunt edge began to hack at the fish's side, scraping the edge back against the grain causing scales to fly everywhere. When the fish put up a struggle and began to flap about a bit, instead of whacking it over the head she just chopped into it's tail, not quite all the way through, flexed the two sections back a bit, turned it over and began to hack away again. At this point I went inside. I realised afterwards that they didn't kill it by a blow to the head as the head is (as per usual) the most prized portion of the fish, and any damage would really affect the quality of the dish. I realised also that all fish I've eaten must have been prepared in exactly the same way and effectively cooked alive. I am now sworn off fish.
Apart from that little episode lunch was enjoyable and the other dishes quite delicious! Leaving the two women behind my guide began our drive back towards Wuyuan, stopping by a few places along the way. The water here is as clean as anything you're going to get in China, and although I refused an offer to go swimming, I did take a chance of a trip on a fisherman's little log raft. I managed to take one or two pictures but what you don't see is me crouched down as low as possible in the middle of this narrow little raft trying hard not to move for fear of tipping the thing over or for getting my feet even wetter aas the leading edge dipped down into the river. An experience... 
Next was the Rainbow Bridge near Qinghua but this was a big disappointment. It was a tourist trap with the actual bridge shielded from sight and behind a complex of shops selling the usual tourist tat. It took all my time just trying to find a spot where the fleet of bamboo tourist rafts and orange lifejackets was hidden from view to take a good photo. This was it. And then we left. Knowing that some areas had been commandeered in this way by the tourist industry really made me quite angry. This place is so beautiful and serene. Partitioning it off from it's landscape and importing in a load of ridiculous 'local speciality' stores and hecklers really spoils things. This kind of exploitation seems to be what the Chinese do best. 
Last village of the day was Hongcun, I think, but I'm not sure anymore. It was much of the same but still worth the trip. Outside many of the houses the villagers were drying leaves that would later be used to make Zongzi, small triangular parcels filled with sticky rice and beans or peanuts, and eaten mostly around the dragon-boat festival in May. That was interesting.
From there it was a long bike ride back to Wuyuan town, where I spent the night. The town was nothing special, but a nice relaxed place to chill and catch up with emails etc.The next morning my guide came round again and we went out to Xiaoqi. This town is apparently quite famous for some reason but I was a bit sick, and pretty tired at this point from all the Chinese so was not at my most enthusiastic. While many of the places on the northern route (which we'd followed for the last few days) had been quite remote and non-touristy, Xiaoqi was a bit of a disappointing follow on. The locals all sat outside their houses waiting expectantly for the tourists to buy something. I walked quickly through the main town down a small stone-paved path that was the ancient roadway to Anhui province to a smaller village just beyond. Unfortunately it began to rain quite heavily soon afterwards, which cut our day short so we went quickly back to the bike and Wuyuan and it was on to my next town and next province, Huangshan in Anhui.
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