Ruihui & Inns Hotel Guiyang

... br>The best bit about yesterday has to be that Tom went out looking for dinner whilst i grabbed a shower, and when he came back, he had chips and sausage! We have eaten nothing but noodles and rice with spicy food stuffs for 10 days to finally have something mildly english, was amazing. Even if the chips were under-cooked, and the sausage over-cooked. Oh well.

We're off to Kunming today on a train, heading south to Laos.

... and a little old, a typical Chineese place. Nobody speaks English and all the signs are in Chineese(which is their second language, after the Miao language), anyway: we manage.
Today at 9 Billy came and took us to thr CITS office, gave us good information. We go at 12:30 to a Miao village, Xijiang, where we'll spend the night. Tomorrow we'll return' pick the luggage and continue to the south.
We found this internet cafe ...

... afternoon or night time!
I don't know how people on tour do it because it's really tiring, last night people were trying to get us to come out and get food with them after the gig (this one guy was from HK, but had spent some time in Ireland so had the coolest Irish accent ever!) but we were all too exhausted and maybe a little burnt out (speaking for myself) so we just came back to the hotel...and went to sleep...we haven't been to bed before 1 ...

... barps' and we were off on a hair-raising ride through the rush hour traffic including a u-turn generating the loudest response yet. Somehow we arrived at the hotel having just lost sight of the taxi, but luckily we spotted Helen on the footpath waving her piece of paper at us, and not a scratch on the truck. A close one but we are now in a nice newish bright and clean pub, on the 16th floor, laughing at the cacophony below. It is chaos out there and we are off for a bite.

... on the scenic and cultural attractions of Xijiang, instead of just a beautiful face. A Xiang-yi sees it differently. "Every villager is an ambassador of Xijiang," she said. "Besides, you can find girls much more beautiful than I everywhere in the village." A Xiang-yi said she has more important tasks to concentrate on for now - with the May Day holiday approaching, she has to get ready and train dozens of staff members for a tea-tasting fair. "It will be three hectic days," she said.

... to see there, a waste of time. Buy some fruit and sweets for supper in the train, and we are left at Guiyang train station, among milions of chinese people. The train has no closed cabins, and we must sleep in the beds in the middle of the corridor, more than 80 persons per wagon. This will really be an experience. Tomorrow we arrive in Guilin, after more than 17 hours in the train. I wonder if it is worth saving the hotel to suffer all this.

... capital of the province. Check in, a short walk, and buy something for supper in a supermarket: some dehidrated noodles, to which you only have to add some boiling water to cook them. Very cheap and tasty! It's been almost 1 week since we saw last non chinese person! Incredible, we thought we would find thousands of tourists everywhere, visiting China during Olympics, but we were wrong.

... half a year of her rent and gave her some of the donated warm clothing. ¡¡ zzm050 Zhaotang local volunteer Mr. Yang, Miao minority, enjoys meeting with Shimenkan ...

... having reached the edge of civilisation and heading off into the great unknown as the green fields and rolling hills lay ahead of you. Before I knew it, Sunday morning was upon us, but it was bright, and warm and the fresh air of a country morning ( I know it's a cliché, but after big city life you treasure it) filled my lungs. If I'd been alone I'd have probably headed out into the fields to watch the farm workers with their water buffalo and dogs and to enjoy the ...

It was a worried couple of kiwis who climbed onto the train that sunny Monday. If we walked into a brimming carriage, we were about to spend 20hrs sitting on our packs. On the other hand, maybe we would be (relatively) comfortably stretched out over 3 seats each, our gleeful laughter echoing in an empty carriage. Turns out it was a bit in the middle - a nearly full carriage, but room for the bags on the ...