This house is being built by members of a Chinese ethnic minority called the Dong people, in their unique traditional style.
One unique aspect of the construction is that the entire house will be built without a single nail or bolt. The whole thing is held together by cutting a slot into one piece of wood and cramming another piece of wood into the slot.
Typical under-ripe-orange stand on wheels.
These people have amazingly strong backs. It was common to see people like this woman carrying huge loads hanging from a pole that runs from shoulder to shoulder.
A basketball court at a tiny, dillapidated hamlet. The Yao Ming effect, I guess...
A view of one of the dinners we ate during our bike tour. "American corn" stir-fried with little bits of pork is at 12:00; you can also see scrambled eggs with tomato slices at 10:00 and stir-fried greens at 6:00. The others are meat dishes. Interestingly, in this part of China the rice is usually not eaten until the very last part of the meal, as a way to sop up any juices in one's bowl and cool the spices that are burning one's mouth up.
Cathy chats with Shamma, our bicycle guide, and Ana, his girlfriend, after dinner. We were given our own private room, complete with a TV, water boiler, and stash of dishware. This is considered preferable in Chinese restaurants because it prevents loud, obnoxious dinner parties from disturbing other diners.
Many of the dishes we ate here would not be all that unfamiliar to those who go to typical Chinese restaurants in the U.S.: bite-sized chunks of meat stir fried in a sauce with bamboo shoot, peppers, and some hot spices. We were not expecting the corn, of course.
The actual travelers themselves can go jump in a lake-- all we really care about are the travel agents.
The Dong minority builds drum towers like this one as a sort of town hall to house important meetings and events such as marriages and funerals. A big drum in the middle beckons villagers to come hither.
Welcome sign for the big drum tower. The calligraphy has been chiseled into stone, then painted over.
From the ground floor of the big drum tower, looking upward. Wuchoolookinat?
Another upward-pointed view of the upper reaches of the big drum tower.
I liked the decorative designs etched into the concrete floor of the Dong drum tower.
Both of them.
These charms were hanging from a rafter at the tippy top of the big drum tower. While I'm sure they have some sort of deep religious significance I couldn't help but think they all looked like potholders. And I am having a hard time taking that one with the cute fly / beetle on it seriously.
View from the top of the big drum tower.
I think Ana might be afraid of heights.
At one end of the ground floor of the big drum tower is a backdrop in front of which you can take a touristy photo. I'm not sure what effect they were going for, with the beach in the background at carved-wood ostriches etc in front of that and lawn chairs with a tea set in front of that. Shamma, our tour guide, was intent on setting my camera to take black-and-white or sepia-toned photos.
See? Told ya.