Tiantou: Village in the Rice Paddies

Jia's extended family is pretty sure we won't be able to figure out trains on our own. They've been taking care of every anticipated need, up to and including packing snacks for us. But we're striking out on our own anyway, to hike in the rice terraces and then go climbing.

They're not totally wrong– Jia's Mandarin is native, but she doesn't care enough to haggle with the touts who meet us at Guilin station and want to arrange our bus ride to Dazhai. We definitely overpay for the walk to a tuk-tuk shuttle to a two hour bus.