Nan Jiang Hotel Liuzhou

... could not count how many bowls of wine that I had drunk. At that time, I blushed at her every-now-and-then looks but not the punch of the wine. Her parents and grandparents seemed to be very interested in my family, my age and even my marital status. I answered each question of them. When I left the family and paid them, they didn't accept my money and just hoped me can visit their family at any time from Guilin. <br> <br> <br>To be continued!<br>

... gutted pig across his lap (I captured a photo of that one) to one with a 30 foot ladder...you get the point. In Vietnam, EVERYONE/THING travls by motorbike - no exceptions. Therefore, I abandoned my usual safety precautions and mounted on the back of a motortaxi to get around the bustling streets of Hanoi and see the action up close and personal. The fact that there are almost no traffic lights made for an exciting ride and a lot of close calls! People are dodging ...

... looked at it earlier and it looked very Chinese. "Well, I am Chinese!" she insisted. One reason she wanted to go there was that they had boiled eggs so it was a chance to celebrate our grandson's full moon, without the usual red dye of course. Apart from the eggs it turned out to be a rather mediocre meal, catering for the tourist groups that stayed in the hotel. I don't know what the European tour groups think of the food in China if all they ever experience is places like ...

... XingPing to Yangshuo, as something we had read said that was possible. We started to ask around in the village though, and after being followed for an hour by a lady who wanted to sell us a trip in the wrong direction, we decided to take a minibus back to Yangshuo and spend our last two days there. Yangshuo itself is unremarkable as a Chinese city. I'd say it ranks with Prague's Staromestke ...

... to see when you try and imagine who painted them. The weather was cold (around 8 deg. C) and the boat didn't provide much shelter so we shivered our way up and down the river for a few hours marvelling at the beautiful scenery. This really was quite off the beaten track, and the locals we saw on boats or on the rivers edge all called out and waved. The next day we boarded our first public bus and had a 2 hour journey to Nanning, then a 3 hour journey to ...

... bus, installed with fully horizontal beds (although small ones at that). Unfortunately we failed in this attempt also. What we got was a standard bus with normal seats, combined with a 16-hour overnight (and day) journey, most of which was spent in a traffic jam! However, we did finally make it to Yangshuo, which turned out to be an awesome little travellers town with great food, friendly locals and of course, plenty of vertical rock. This area of China has ...

... to get started, luckily Angeline knew enough Mandarin to get us by. I wanted to upload some photos, but had to go into a separate 'USB' room where all the computers had USB access. Then it made sense, each room had a separate function - those for watching movies, those for gaming, those for uploads/downloads etc. So advanced and it was really cheap too! The Windows operating system was in Chinese characters though which made it a bit difficult. I ...

... popularity could be destroyed. Realistically, it won't stay a westerners' haunt if the mass chinese tour groups kill the atmosphere. But will the chinese come if the western aspect has gone? Almost certainly yes, but Yangshuo won't be the same, and that would be sad. Right now, this is still a magnificent place to amble around. Things I love to do: - stare across the Li Jiang at any time of day or night. I never get tired of the scenery. - wander ...

With the slightly clearer skies first thing this morning, I could see some teenage boys having an early morning swim in the River Li, just outside my window, with Elephant Hill (a cast formation so called because it apparently resembles a pachyderm) in the background. We soon found ourselves also making use of the river, on a 4-hour cruise. I'm not really sure what I'd expected, but this wasn't it! A fairly ...

The morning of the 24th we caught a train for Guilin. Riding trains in China is never a dull proposition. The trains are always full and being Westerners we seem to be a curiosity to the Chinese. After about 5 hours we arrived in Guilin. From Guilin we caught a bus to Yangshou about 65 miles away. We arrived in Yangshou late in the afternoon looked at a few places to stay before walking over to the hotel I stayed in 2 years ago. The same guy was running the place and ...