Oct 19 - to Lingshan

Some of today's scenery...

...lot's of bananas growing into plastic bags...

More veneer-making... these operations are all right beside the road with only the roof over the machinery and the veneer is then put outside to dry. Presumably the climate co-operates, but it does rain. And we've seen dozens upon dozens of these facilities, each needing three people to operate the machinery plus others carting the product out to dry. It often appears to be a family affair with kids who aren't in school there with mum and dad.

From log to veneer under this one roof

...put the log between the rollers...

...and the veneer goes up the belt and gets cut...

...and this guy puts the good cuts in this stack and the 'bad'
ones from the beginning of a cut on the pile behind him.

The mobile butcher...

...he comes to you...

...with all the tools to cut exactly what you want...

...and drives right up to the customer (carrying the child).

 We are again travelling where foreign tourists are rare and people seem to genuinely wish to interact with us despite the language barrier. Invariably we (and they) get good laughs. They take our picture; we take theirs. The kids are nice.  

Our lunch stop is beside a lumber yard - the kids play as kids
will on the piles of logs...

...while the adults interact with us.

When we stopped for a cold drink in the afternoon, we found this enterprise - eight to ten women working on these wiring cables while in the other half of the room, their kids played. At the far side was the little store that sold cold drinks (everything from water to beer) and basic packaged foods. It was all completely open to the outside. They didn't mind us taking the photo - they took ours too and posed with us.

 

There were about eight of us, and soon other people stopped to look.

We exchanged hellos with this lady as we rode into Lingshan (a small city of 8.5 million). Until looking at the photo, I didn't realize that there were four people on board the scooter.

Finally, dinner... we usually have dinner in the hotel where we're staying and it is a set dinner, so we don't usually see the menu. However one of our group looked at the menu at last night's hotel and found these offerings. Translation is a wonderful thing - not quite sure what these are, but the second one sounds interesting, doesn't it.