For the past week we have transitioned from some what rural China to the country. Our fist step was the Dragons Backbone Rice Terraces. In the three hour drive to the terraces the scenery turned from green to greener. We wound up and into the misty mountains covered in subtropical forest composed of pine and bamboo; a very new combination for me indeed. Even more peculiar where the patches of taro and bananas mixed into this pine, bamboo scramble. The bus driver taking us to the bottom entrance of the terraces drove with the intensity of a city slicker around the blind corners. It was the first time I had used a seat belt all trip.
We had an hours hike up hill to our accomidation. The sweat was well worth it, the view was incredible. The entire valley we where in has been progressively developed for the past 600-700 years! Nearly every hill top was terraced at conture. The entire valley looked similar to a giant National Geographic topographic map, but entirely more beautiful. At dawn and dusk the light was just right to reflect off each water filled terrace creating what looked like an interrupted mirror of the sky.
The houses where huge wooden establishments built in traditional fashion using no nails; each floor and plank was held together through an interlocking and wedging method. The smell of pine emanating from the wood was so strong you could taste it. One down side of these beautiful structures was that they are not insulated; you could hear the person a floor down and two rooms over picking there nose. Now imagine bringing a stampede of teenaged elephants into this quiet, country escape. Guests of our acomidations, please forgive us.
The second step of our journey took us further into the mysterious country side of China to the Dong Village. Again, we stayed in a 4 storied wooden fortress that smelled of forest and earth, and with all twenty of us inside sounded like a freight train. Our hotel was built on the river bank over looking the villages 100 year old bridge, the entire village, a few of the garlic chive fields and the mist covered mountains across the river. Every room had a view that made up for the bed; a piece if ply wood with a down cover.
We where lucky to have hiked to the beautiful overlook day one of our stay because each day proceeding was cloudy. The entire valley is composed of water sunken fields. Each field is supplied with water by bamboo water wheels connected to the rivers edge. Above the fields rise the three to four story high wooden homes topped with intricate tiled roofs. Climbing the hills above the houses are rows upon rows of tea plants, deep green in color underneath with fluorescent green tops. Behind these hills are silhouetted mountains covered with splashes of bamboo and pine forest with white mist literally dancing down and through the many valleys. INCREDIBLE!
We spent two days doing service at a school tucked away in a high mountain village about an hours drive from our hotel. I loved the drive. Half of it boasted the views of the river valley and the other half of the jaw dropping bigger picture; many river valleys rippling into the mist. The whole picture is like something out of a dream.
The first day at the school we mixed three bags of cement and got to bond over physical labor. The second day my students quite successfully taught the children English. After class we got to hang out with a few of the village youngsters. I was privileged enough to be invited into a game of “village rasource” happy sack. I so dubbed this game “village resource” happy sack because the clever girls I was playing with had made our sack out of foliage growing in a near by planter. They stripped the stems of the leafs and used the remaining vascular system like rope to thatch all the leaves together!
Our time in the Dong village was most surely my favorite part if the trip.
The Limber Lotus 
Awesome