Bravo Guilin

... Our tour guide nick was a ridiculous chinese man who liked to exclaim CHILIES in a really high pitched voice when he saw them, so that we knew what Yao people specialized in. Here the tour group led us into some people's house, so we could see how this ethnic minority lived. But I was kind of uncomfortable with traipsing around someones house with 20 other people so Ben and I didn't stay long even though our tour ...

... nieto. Tras el descanso, seguimos subiendo, hasta que el camino empezo a girar otra vez de vuelta a Dazhai. Habiamos salido a las once. Llegamos de vuelta al Minority Cafe a eso de las cuatro y media, listas para comernos un torta con platano y un chocolate fresquito. <br><br>Cogimos el autobus de vuelta a Gulin que tardo unas tres horas y nos alojamos en el hostal Flowers, que es mas bien ...

... to couples that forget all about taking pictures. Yangshuo is also a very popular honeymoon place for young couples. The come here also to pose for professional pictures in wedding customs along the river. <br><br>Went by and looked at the stuff Dawn was buying. The gal was just setting things out on the street in front of a friends shop. Some very nice stuff to. I picked out a few things for myself. The one thing lead to another and we found ...

... I got a bit annoyed. I told them I just wanted a Coke (Kula) and I was going to sit and rest for a couple of minutes. Even as I sat drinking they kept after me about going on  the "bamboo", buying a cold cucumber, or staying the night in the fishing village. I smiled, nodded my head and told them I was going to wait and rest a while. After looking around the village I took one of the bamboo raft boats back up river to Xingping.  

having had such a poor start i was glad to turn up at Guilin in the wee hours of the morning to find a hostel that finally had some people i could talk to! luckily for me i met a great bunch of folks from here on out through China and Guilin was really the first time i started really enjoying it and taking in the culuture (and food in large amounts!) Guilin was a welcome break fro, the previous intimidating mega cities and was blessed with some pretty awsome surrounding ...

... I quickly learned the word for shade, o wonderful shade, in the summer of subtropical Guilin. And leaving the airport, I noticed something was different. The road from the airport to the city wasn't paved! Begin to feel like home already. You wouldn't really say NYC and the Mississippi delta are the same either, right? I never really made it to Guilin, I got the passing peak on the road to Yangshuo. But I saw what mattered, the Mountains ...

... drove us straight to our $5 per night hostel. He demanded an extra ten yuan for the hassle of running us around, we tried to get out of it, but finally gave up and gave him the money. Chinese food in China, thus far has been delicious. The first place we found made their noodles right in front of us. They had picture menus on the wall, so we only had to point to what we wanted and they would bring it to us. Last night, however, was a ...

... seem to be a holiday. If we had no time constraint or visa constraints the trip might have been a little different. Fortunately we have a few free days built into our China leg so needless to say a few days will be spent doing as little as possible. And then of course we should have a few days on the Trans-Siberian express where we should have ample time to sit back and reflect. We've had many people ask us all sorts of questions about our personal experience and ...