Cormorant Fisherman, Yangshuo

Many thanks to those blippers who wished us a good night's sleep on the Chinese sleeper train., Most of us slept rather better than we expected, although having to get up at 5am and then transfer to a bus for a 2-and-a-half hour journey wasn't ideal!

Anyway we're now in Yangshuo for 3 days. In the late morning we had a guided tour around the market area of the town: on the whole we managed to resist the pleas of the stall-holders to buy anything although my Editor succumbed to a rather nice embroidered blouse. We're not very good at the necessary bartering but she did get it for a pretty good price.

As part of the tour we saw some cormorant fishermen. They weren't actually fishing but just posing for photos. In case you've not heard of them (I hadn't until recently) they use the cormorants to catch fish for them: I believe they use a temporary band round their necks so that they can't swallow them. (It does sound cruel,. I know, but historically it has been practised in Japan, China & Korea as well as Greece, North Macedonia and, briefly England and France.). Here they use bamboo rafts as you can see.

This afternoon's main activity was a Chinese cookery class. This began with a trip round the enormous vegetable market where the raw ingredients had already been purchased for us. Then we were taken slowly through the cooking of a 5-course wok meal: it was our job to eat what we'd cooked and fortunately it wasn't bad at all! (See the "food porn" in the first extra.)

The second extra is a quaint delivery vehicle of which there's several here. It rather looks as if someone forget to attach the front wings and bonnet!!

This afternoon's main activity