Beijing was already blistering hot under sunny blue skies when we flew out at 9.30 on Tuesday morning with Grand China Airlines.

It couldn't have been more of a contrast with our landing in Guilin, just over three hours later, where although warm, we were welcomed by torrential rain and an all-pervading mist.

A friendly female driver was there to safely deliver us to the Yangshuo Mountain Retreat, about an hour and a half away from the airport.

The road was flooded in parts but the buffalo pulling carts along the tracks by the rice paddies didn't seem bothered.

The landscape was awe inspiring. The hills of Guangxi you see in so many ink paintings were all around us and they really don't do it justice. As I glimpsed them from the car window through the rain and mist, I was transported back to the picture books of ancient Chinese tales I had read to Max the week before. But enough about that.

We scurried inside the hotel under umbrellas and then it was up to our room with its magnificent view of the lush green hills and the swollen Yulong river for a change into dry clothes.

Once we'd unpacked we booked a taxi downtown and wandered through the soggy streets of Yangshuo in search of dinner and chose the cosmopolitan Rock & Grill, just off West Street.

We woke up to the rushing sound of the river the next morning and soon the hotel staff had organised a car -- okay, there are bikes but I am now quite pregnant -- to Xing Ping and then a fishing boat to the 1,500-year-old Fishing Village on the River Li. Our fellow passengers were a chicken and its two female carers as well as an old man with one very large sack of rice and his chain-smoking mate.

And so we sailed down river, passing the Guilin tourist boats and the occasional bamboo raft carrying a fisherman and his fish-seeking cormorants.

At the fishing village, local women sat on the quay sewing woolen slippers and also selling wooden toys and handmade beaded jewellery. Max, who had been in pirate mode all morning, triumphantly seized the opportunity to claim his treasure, handing over 3 kuai for a blue beaded wrist cuff. The pungent smell of fresh crispy river shrimp filled the air from the hot oily wok on the stall next to us.

We followed a couple of stray dogs and long line of chickens into the village, with it's narrow windy lanes and ornate, ancient tiled roofs, sat under the shadow of the green hills. It wasn't long before one of the villagers invited us up onto his roof waving a photo of The Clintons in the very same spot. For 5 kuai each, we could climb up to their now famous roof and take photos. And so we did.

Back at the hotel, after a hearty lunch of rice, tofu, broccoli, egg and tomato in the riverside garden, we mused how, having driven back through Fuli and observing the workers in the surrounding fields, how hard rural life must be.

That afternoon the boys hit the two wheels. With Max in a wicker seat on the back of Daddy's bicycle, they explored the surrounding neighbourhood, stopping for drinks at The Giggling Tree.

This morning, we headed out early on foot in search of the 1400-year old Banyan Tree. We sat in it's shade. Admiring the poise and smiling at the "ai yo!" exclamations of the chinese tourists steering themselves on bamboo rafts over to another village.

A flooded walkway offered another route to the village and so we held hands, dipped our feet in the cool water and made our way across. We were snapped paparazzi style by a photographer on the other side as we crossed and happily paid him 10 kuai for a laminated copy that he printed out in colour under the shade of his bamboo roofed street stall. All the while admiring his entrepreneurship and technologically advanced operation (we waited less than a minute for him to download, print and laminate the 8 x 6 inch photo!).

We took a moto-rickshaw from there to Moon Village and ate lunch on the shady rooftop of Yangshuo Village Inn's Italian restaurant, Luna, admiring the view of Moon Hill -- it has a hole the shape of a crescent moon in the rock.

This afternoon, Max and Daddy headed out on a bamboo raft of their own. I sat to write this on the hotel's riverside terrace with camera at the ready for their arrival.