7 Days Inn (Guiyang Guanshui Road)

... 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.<br><br>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.<br>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.<br>We found this internet cafe ...

... afternoon or night time! <br>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 ...

... too high for me. You'll recognise his finger lower left corners! He was terrified of dropping the camera.<br><br>Unfortunately, a few of the photos are fuzzy - that's because most mornings here are quite hazy, always clearing up around mid day. <br><br>Later, as we were cruising through a most spectacular mountain range we decided to pull over into a wee rest stop and boil the billy for a coffee. Wow, all those imposing mountains were so huge and we so tiny, it was ...

... 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.

So after a couple of days travelling i was finally in Guiiyang. I was only planning to be there for one day but on my way back from the falls i was delayed in traffic for 3 hrs, which meant i couldnt catch the train ii wanted to. The ticket to go see the falls was expensive especially as i forgot to use my fake student card. i got to see three different view point ...

... 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.

... oxen and 70-80 pigs have already died due to weather conditions and malnutrition. Each family only raises one to two pigs for slaughter and meat each year. The ...

Things are finally starting to settle down again after the holiday. The week after we had a week off for the holiday, most of our students were preparing for a test, so they had the week off to study. So we didn't have most of our classes then. This week, at one of the school campuses, the tests are being graded Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, so no classes then either. This only cancels one of my classes, as opposed to two of Chaston's, as well as ...