You wouldn’t believe this place…

Greetings from kaili, Guizhou Province, People’s Republic of China. It is a really wild place. Very beautiful but a little rough edged and quite poor..caol mines to the north and ringed by industry zones, beyond which are stunningly ebautiful lush green valleys filled with mountains, rivers and rice paddies.

It sort of reminds me of West Virginia… except for the countless water buffalo, Miao and Dar minority people, brightly colored folk emroidery, incredible costumes, incredibly hot and delicious food and friendly people who invite you to eat or drink with them and their family constantly. And whom look at anna as if they have just seen a wizard. I’m telling you Gandolf could not get any more amazed greetings than the princess does.

I have taken a lot of incredible photos and will post a lot of them next week when I get home. (we’ll be back Sundya night) It has not been an easy trip all the time.. lots of time in the car on twisty mountain roads, not a lot of places for the kids to run wild, one little restaurant after another with food bright red from chilis and bathrooms that would make half of you faint on sight. But it has been really rewarding and today we had a super great one.

Jacob and eli keep making friends with these wild Chinese boys and getting into hardcore games of tag, karate, shared Gaemboys.. One thing we have realized is there are an awful lot of wild boys int he world and they can connect immediately without saying a word that either understands. They really had fun today.

We had lunch at this little country place ont he banks of a raging muddy river. it was primarily a barbecue joint where they provide a hibachi and food, including little fish caught in the river and you grill it up… our guide figured we didn’t want that and ordered other stuff. While we were waiting, we went for a walk and an extended chinese family started feeding us and giving us beer and we ended up joining them and sharing all our food with them and hanging out for hours.. really amazing considering we could barely communicate.

Eventually the kids were skipping stoens nad catching crabs while the women watched them and I was engaged in some hardcore drinking with the menfolk. Which reminds me.. I need to go to sleep. When we were leaving that place, jacob said, “Dad, this was the best lunch ever.” More amazingly, as some of you will understand, he tried the barbecued chicken and loved it and ate a bunch. That is as remarkable as anything else we’ve seen here. tomorrow, wea re going to a big local market then heading back to Guiyang (about three hours) for flight home. Check back Monday.