New World Grand Hotel Wuzhou

... see them, swordfighting . If all their soul-stirring stories had ever happened, they should had been taken place right here.

We were just riding in the fairyland like time was endless, and ahead of us was the endless sunshine and blue sky, it was so spectacular that it touched the most tender part of your heart, it made you in the mood for love.

My fantasy could have lasted longer if I didn't fell off from one of the motorbikes,

If I had put too much imagination ...

... that Steve was sleeping in and someone else's stuff was on it. Shortly after we got there the guy who took Steve's bed came in. He was understanding and Steve was able to sleep in the same place. Our bus didn't leave until 9:00pm, so we checked out of the hostel and checked our luggage there and headed out to look around Guilin. We read that Qixing Gongyuan as one of the original places the site see in Guilin, so we decided to give it a try. We ...

... to them. From there, to our pleasant surprise, as we had not heard anything else about the park, we came upon a panda exhibition center with one lone panda walking around. There were only a couple other people there so we really didn't believe it had a panda until we actually saw it. Needless to say, it made our day and the somewhat expensive entrance fee to the park totally worth it.

Today we did a river cruise up the Li River. The views on the river a beautiful, especially the limestone mountains. They jut up steeply out the ground and are mostly covered with lush green vegetation. The locals have named several of them for the shapes that they resemble. For some you really have to use your imagination (a bit like seeing shapes in the clouds) and for others, like the cats ears, it seems like they could apply to just about any of the mountains ...

... very hot and humid! We had a day trip to Yangshuo which was even more beautiful than Guilin. Even the rain couldn't spoil a great bike ride around the countryside. So our Chinese adventure comes to an end. China is an amazing place, the amazingly bad sits right next to the amazingly good and sometimes it felt like we had to try pretty hard to enjoy ourselves. I've also lost a few pounds of weight. Thailand next, I expect it to be a bit more chilled out than China.

... or to further studies abroad. One such conversation went on for more than an hour with a young girl in Yangshou as she wanted to hear everything about South Africa and we were just as curious to hear about how the young Chinese perceive the country and its rapid growth. It seems a common perception in China that all people from Africa must be black and it often took quite some explaining before they would believe we were really from Africa. Food thus far has been quite an ...

... one. Short but dramatic, the gorge was only 8 km long. From the top deck you could see the rock layers on each side of the river that had been sliced away. Once we had passed through the gorge the landscape faded back to more gently rolling hills. There was more activity along this stretch of the river. A lot of small towns and fields making there way up from the river. Our next stop was Wushan, the jumping-off point for the Little ...

... in the other direction, even though it comes from Guilin. The bus trip took us once again past limestone hills as far as the eye could see. Unfortunately we also saw at least a dozen nasty accidents - a mini-bus turned over, a big bus with its front smashed in, a motorcyclist's body trapped under the wheels of a bus, various other mangled motorcycles - it seemed endless, and a bit frightening considering the way our driver was cutting through the ...

... had come to expect from this restaurant, some of the taro being burnt black and quite inedible, and a noodle dish they suggested turned out to be a boring soup with commercial noodles, redeemed only by the presence of fresh mushrooms. Maybe their chef had gone home to his family for the New Year, but, whatever the reason, they've lost our custom. We decided it wasn't worth the long walk to this place if their standards could deteriorate so much. Raymond's Travel Page

Dylan: In the morning we got on a boat which goes to Wuzhou along the Li River. The trip takes ten hours and goes overnight. We slept on ************ the top bunk. Kit: The boat was very dirty and looked like a concentration camp. From the outside it looked quite ...