Cyclists get a rare experience with China's remote Yao people

The frost we discovered on our tents at sunrise still twinkled offtree branches as we, and the sun, climbed higher up the terracedslopes. I continued to view my surroundings with only dreamlikeacceptance well after my leg muscles convinced me that the mountainswere real.

All morning, my brain tried to process the incoming data: theimpossible green of the winter crops, the unlikely placement of peasand squash vines on hut roofs and the fantastic ability of the localmen and women who balanced bulky loads as they scrambled up cliffs.

We were traveling with the Yao, a minority in China, and someof the last survivors of the native tribes who inhabited …