TravelStream™ news feed for member williwinkle on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/williwinkle en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Thu, 20 Nov 2008 15:09:00 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/williwinkle/western_china/1227199200/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/williwinkle/western_china/1227199200/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/williwinkle/western_china/1227199200/tpod.html Thu, 20 Nov 2008 15:09:00 -0500 Us oldies making a go of travelling through western and southern China

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Nelspruit, Mpumalanga, South Africa

Arrived in SA at the end of September for 3 weeks holiday only and the weather was pleasant not too hot, our place of abode was just outside of Nelspruit some 40 Ks south west of the township in a small place called Ngodwana. The whole area is either a national park or forest lands and loads of them, mainly for the use of the local paper factory. The whole area is very hilly, even mountainous it being part of the Draken mountains range. The area is crisscrossed by lots of streams and small rivers and artificial lakes. Apart from the local and national Game parks the area is also rife with lots of wild life but not the large types found in the game parks, there are no end of monkeys, baboons and snakes of all types are to be found there. What is categorised as the worlds most dangerous snakes the Black Mambaare to found there, the Mozambique Spitting Cobra and all sorts of Pythons, some of these can be found to reach lengths exceeding 3 metres, real lot of lovely creatures "arn't they".
Of course there is the famous Kruger Wild Life Park which must be largest park in SA and it backs onto the Mozambique Limpopo Park which in itself is also very big. In this large area there has an enormous range of wild animals starting with the big 4 and almost all of the other wild animals found in Africa.
To the west of the Kruger an area we travelled through quite a lot is a mountainous and very fertile area covered with forests farm land small townships and a lot of SA modern history of their settlement and later on their armed strife with the British army. I very much recommend a visit to this corner of the world, it's not off the map it's not wild open places but all the same very beautiful and interesting.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/williwinkle/western_china/1222017360/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/williwinkle/western_china/1222017360/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/williwinkle/western_china/1222017360/tpod.html Fri, 04 Jan 2008 04:40:47 -0500 Us oldies making a go of travelling through western and southern China

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Krabi, Thailand


To this place Siboya, I have been planning to go for a long time before we left for our China Journey and although it wasn't like what I imagined in many respects it was even better.



The island of Siboya is 2 or 3 kilometers off the coast of Krabi and it is about 16 kilometers long and 3 wide. In my innocence I thought that to get to the island we would just have to go down to the beach and get a boat going out in that direction. It wasn't quite as simple as that. First we had to take a taxi to 'the pier', which it seems was almost an hours journey from Krabi airport. There we found ourselves in a small Muslim fisherman's village, there we had to wait a half an hour until the guy who promised to ferry us out there had loaded up his small and dilapidated boat with bags of rice and mopeds. The boat journey took about 10 minutes, we arrived at the island's pier which is situated between 2 huts and thats all. Although I'd phoned our our host earlier to have a vehicle waiting for us all we could see on arrival was a cranky old motorbike with a sidecar and that was to be our transport! We got into the sidecar and were driven on dusty paths across the breadth of the island through jungle and coconut groves that had bean deserted and the jungle reclaimed them. The island seemed almost empty of residents an observation which was incorrect. Here and there the island sported a few small clumps of huts and buildings which you could hardly call villages.
The site we had set our sites on was a collection of bungalows some of them belonging to the owner of the holiday resort and the rest built and owned by absentee owners who come there to holiday in there own time. The resort was started by its owner some 14 years earlier who'd bought the land from its previous owners, On this land they grew coconuts and rice (there is no money at all to be made from coconuts here) now the grounds were landscaped lawns with coconut trees and a small stream flowing through, all very picturesque. We were the only residents in the resort and it seemed as if we had the island to ourselves only. Personally I could have stayed there for a long time but my spouse has this almost phobia thing about snakes and the island was really snake ridden, there were all types like pythons, cobras and at least two types of poisoness green snakes and 'Gawd' only knows what else, so we left after only 3 days.
As it is I managed to take pictures of the astounding sunsets the tides going in and out, and of the island from all sorts of angles. The name of the island Siboya Island I was told it meant Crocodile Island but there haven't been any croc sightings for years.
We left with mixed feelings, I for one felt very much at home there but...
After Siboya there wasn't much left to do in Bangkok but bide away our time before flying back home


























]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/williwinkle/western_china/1221928320/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/williwinkle/western_china/1221928320/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/williwinkle/western_china/1221928320/tpod.html Tue, 01 Jan 2008 14:00:22 -0500 Us oldies making a go of travelling through western and southern China

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Bangkok, China

Arrived in Bangkok, this is our second time here only this time it was done on a shoe string, we stayed in a cheap but not too bad a hotel in the center of town. No doubt we made a mistake of having to stay so long in the Thai capital, 10 days is too long. We made an effort to while away the time, I say this because on our previous visit to Thailand we had enough time to see the sites, most of them without a doubt were impressive and beautiful. But we were looking for something else... Bangkok is a very large busy and in many parts a very dirty city, where you can see cat size rats infesting the main thorough ways masses of people selling everything and anything that can be copied, reproduced and sold in roadside stalls. They park themselves on either side of the pavement in such a manner and so close that in most places it is impossible to go down the street without rubbing up against their stalls and being accosted by someone at almost every stall. On the whole I am not someone who likes city life and here I felt that I would need a week or so back home just to clean my lungs of the terrible pollution, they have a real problems of noise, pollution and prostitution. There have been recently quite a few television documentaries about this acute problem, true that it attracts enormous amounts of tourists who leave behind them lots of money, but the wrong type. It is so very obvious and blatant but nothing in that country is done about it for the wrong reasons.
Not all is bleak and bad in Thailand or even Bangkok. There are lots of great restaurants, culture and shopping centers. One evening we were sitting in a restaurant eating outside when we heard approaching along the street a band of some kind the music was very loud especially the drums. Then they came into view, it was a large group of young people doing a dragon dance. They were weaving and prancing from one side to the other of the street to the applause of the people. It was very entertaining and refreshing. We visited the latest mall to open in the city "The Siam Paragon". This mall is on the Sky Train route and it is enormous and very expensive. All the very biggest names in fashion are there, many of the average Thai and even tourist just cannot afford to buy there, but it is definitely a very impressive mall. Personally I liked browsing around the computer mall. A whole mall, all 5 floors selling everything electronic, most of the software sold there is definitely pirated.











Next Siboya.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/williwinkle/western_china/1190052300/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/williwinkle/western_china/1190052300/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/williwinkle/western_china/1190052300/tpod.html Mon, 31 Dec 2007 14:40:02 -0500 Us oldies making a go of travelling through western and southern China

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Kunming, China

Left Lijiang and made our way by bus to Dali with the intention of staying as short a time as possible then on to Kunming. We arrived in Dali and we were lucky in so far as the hotel where we had stayed in previously had room for us. Our first priority was to make sure we had tickets to Kunming and flight tickets to Thailand. We approached a travel agency about what we wanted and they said no problem and the ticket prices seemed fair, so we paid in advance and received immediately our bus tickets with a promise that our flight tickets will be ready by noon. We moved about town doing some last minute buying of presents then returned to the travel agency at 12 o'clock noon. We were told that the tickets had not arrived yet, 'probably because of the rain, please come back at 2 o'clock. In the rain and in and out of cafe's we moved about the town arriving back at the agency at 2 0'clock. Again we were told that the tickets had not yet arrived. We were getting just a little nervous and we were told that our tickets would be brought to us at our hotel by 6 o'clock maximum. The rain didn't let up and by 5:30 PM I phoned and was told that the tickets would be delivered no later than 6 o'clock. 5 minutes to 6 o'clock and I phoned up again and by this time I was really pissed off when I was told 'not to worry it was because of the rain'. Then I did something that maybe I should not have done but I was seriously worried that if today the tickets were not in my hand then we would miss the flight for tomorrow, especially our bus journey to Kunming was for early next morning and Kunming was the only local airport hereabouts with international flights, I threatened the travel agent that if the tickets did not arrive here at my hotel within the next 5 minutes then I would call the police. Dead on time the agent himself came bringing our tickets he'd brought them on his bicycle. We sighed with relief, I hated having to threaten the agency because I knew that most of the populace were quite wary of the police and any authorities. All the same we shook hands and parted ways good friends.
Next, ten days in Thailand.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/williwinkle/western_china/1189881120/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/williwinkle/western_china/1189881120/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/williwinkle/western_china/1189881120/tpod.html Sun, 30 Dec 2007 14:05:05 -0500 Us oldies making a go of travelling through western and southern China

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Lijiang, China

We had no plans to trek in this area, Zhongdian, we were not dressed for it and the weather was so cold and rainy that after visiting the monastery and seeing the sites in the lovely town, we decided to start back. We arrived back in Lijiang and immediately settled back into Mama Naxi's, a great place. After some gentle persuasion I persuaded my spouse that we should make a trip to an area called Lake Lugo, roughly a day's journey east of Lijiang. We joined a few other travelers from Mama Naxi on a small bus to the lake. The journey was outstanding in its beauty the whole way there and eventually back. If I wasn't mistaken we crossed some 4 or 5 mountain ranges, rivers. The perilously narrow road of which my guess that some 80 kilometers of it was surfaced with cobble stones and that was the better part of the road. The rest was on the whole one mass of mud and rock falls, pot holes large enough to swallow up our small bus and whole stretches of road that had been washed away completely in the almost continuous rain. We arrived just before evening at a view point above the lake and the site was breath taking and in spite of the foul weather one could see this lovely pearl of a lake was set down there in the valley surrounded by mountains. When we arrived at the lake a little while later it was for a change, raining. We found lodging right a way in a large Tibetan log building with very good rooms at a reasonable to cheap price. Things were looking up. After settling we with others from our group decided to go out and find somewhere to eat. We found on the Lake shore a small hole in the wall eatery, the food was just about edible. Now not only had it not stopped raining it was now pouring down cats and dogs. Seated in our small restaurant looking out into the rain we could see a whole flotilla of small dugout rowing boats battling the rain and waves trying desparately to get back to shore before they were swamped. The boats had taken a load of tourists to a small island off shore, which in normal conditions would have been a lovely excursion but now it had turned into a perilous and very wet adventure. As far as we could see every one made it safely back to not to dry land.
Later that same evening we were invited to a meal in one of the locals houses right next door to us, and although we had already eaten we decided that this would be an experience not to be overlooked. We were right in this observation. The room we we were invited into was an unlit large Spartan room with bunk beds along one side an open fire place without a chimney, the smoke just flows up through the roofing, there was a low table with even lower benches around it which we were invited to sit. I must admit that the little Tibetan food that we had tasted in Kangding wasn't to our taste buds at all but here it was even worst, in fact, some of it was so disgusting that it was enough to make me want to spew up. All this time one of our hosts who was on the way to being completely plastered kept on plying us with the local liquor which tasted so foul that I found myself eating more of the terrible food just to take away the taste of the even worst liquor, but apart from that it definitely was an experience. Our guests did their utmost to entertain us and explain to us about their way of life which is so very different to ours, theirs being a matriarchal society. All this time we and them were using sign language and one of our group knew a few basic words in Chinese so we got by understanding most of what was said. During the meal the most voluble of our hosts explained to us that they smoke the whole pig and that its meat can be edible even after 30 years!!! Then in an effort to maybe impress us even more he pointed out to us such a pig. The said pig was lying on a shelf inches away behind us, we hadn't noticed it because the room was so badly lit that we could hardly make out our food, let alone the smoked pig behind our backs. That same evening we were invited to a barbecue, also another experience we thought that we should partake of. So a little later on we started out towards proposed barbecue but we turned back, it was simply pissing down, so we had an early night. The next day it was for a change, raining, so on the spot we decided to take the next bus back to Lijiang. The bus didn't start out straight for the destination it made for a far shore on the other side of the lake and there the rain let up a bit and we were able to see how pristine and lovely the lake really is. The journey back started out like on the way there that is until we hit a traffic pile up. Yes a real humdinger of a pile up. We had just gone past a coal mine up on the hillside when suddenly all the traffic the small road can possibly take piled up behind a coal truck that had tipped over and needless to say a good part of its load. Three hours it took until we were able to get past the blockage. The coal company had sent out its experts to try and straighten up the truck using 3 cables each one with a winch attached at one end at the other a spike driven into the ground at the other but the ground was so soggy that they couldn't hold. After many attempts they even strung up another cable to a telephone post down the valley some fifty meters away but that didn't help either so they decided on another approach to the problem that is of letting the masses of vehicles buses cars tractors and whatever go past but to do that they had to widen the road, no easy task either. With the help of local farmers they piled up loads of logs into a ditch alongside the road there bye widening the road, only then was it possible to scrape by the obstacle. Because the rest of the journey was continued so much later, our driver had not only to contend with the difficulties usual to this road but also now he had also to contend with the failing light and eventually driving in complete darkness of the night, there is no lighting on this road. Needless to say to the journey back was much of the way quite hair raising and often downright frightening. We arrived safely, tired exhausted and hungry. Mama Naxi had heard about our travails and was ready and expecting us with a good meal then straight to bed.
Next going back to Dali.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/williwinkle/western_china/1198308840/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/williwinkle/western_china/1198308840/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/williwinkle/western_china/1198308840/tpod.html Wed, 26 Dec 2007 13:11:17 -0500 Us oldies making a go of travelling through western and southern China

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Zhongdian, China

It was raining when we left Lijiang and it was raining when we arrived in Zhongdian. It was miserably cold we left the bus station in Zhongdian and looked for a taxi to the old town, we knew its not far away but with our luggage and the weather as it was so we caught hold of a taxi. The driver didn't know where our hostel was so quite some time was spent looking around and still we didn't find it, so we left him in the old town and started out on foot. Eventually we found the hostel and it was a dump and our room reflected the conditions there. We'd arrived in the evening so the following morning we booked into the next door cheep hotel which was a whole lot better and surprisingly cheaper, which goes to show that it is worth while shopping around even for a good room.



Like Dali and Lijiang before, Zhongdian is a rebuilt old town and is very picturesque, it is very much a Tibetan town the houses sturdily built with enormous logs of wood and very colourful, all this like the other towns in the region, to attract as many visitors and tourists as possible in the short tourist season there. The town is blockaded off from motor vehicles at all of its entrances the only vehicles we saw was the trash truck doing his daily rounds and the occasional motorbike, also the main square is raised up above all of the streets leading into it bye several steps, there bye preventing the movement of motor vehicles. The streets would not be easy to drive on anyway because they were surfaced with flag stones, almost like cobble stones only more uneven.




It was so cold and almost continuously rainy that we had to buy ourselves extra warm clothing and shoes. Whereas in the previous towns I could make do with sandals and socks even in the rain, here it was just too cold, but finding size 45 shoes for me was an experience because as I was told the maximum size available was 43, ironically eventually I found a pair size 47 and I made do with that.
Whilst in town we searched for a travel agency or some one who could advise us about what there is to see and visit in the area, all of the agencies we visited advertised in English but nobody spoke even half a word of English. Eventually we got talking to a Tibetan guy who lives in California and was on a visit and through him we learnt a whole lot more than we could have learnt from reading and the Lonely Planet book and all of the travel agencies put together.
Outside of town there is a large monastery which he (the Californian) advised us to visit and like he said it is very big and impressive monastery with some 600 monks.


In spite of the intermittent rain we climbed all the steps up to the top of the hill to the monastery buildings and we could see that just like at the bottom of the hill there was a lot of rebuilding going on.


In one of the buildings there was a very large statue of the Buddha and it was without a head and limbs and as you can see in the pictures here the limbs were strewn about waiting to be assembled.
After Zhongdian we travelled back to Lijiang.













]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/williwinkle/western_china/1188541980/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/williwinkle/western_china/1188541980/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/williwinkle/western_china/1188541980/tpod.html Fri, 07 Dec 2007 14:58:27 -0500 Us oldies making a go of travelling through western and southern China

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Lijiang, China

We arrived in Lijiang after a long and tiring bus journey and we were picked up by one of the workers in our new Guest house and taken by taxi to Mama Naxi's Guesthouse, a much praised and written about hostel. If we'd have had to find the place by ourselves we would quite probably have not found it, 'cos it is in the middle of the old town and many of the local taxi drivers don't know where it is. We were settled placed in a very small room with smelly toilets and decided the next day to ask for something larger and less smelly, we were successful and found to our surprise that Mama Naxi is not one Guest House but three, all of them within 3 minutes walk of one another and all of them run by one women by the name of Mama, at least that is what every one calls her.



The Naxi people have a matriarchal society which means that the women are the leading force in the family and this can definitely be seen amongst the Naxi, for instance Mama and the way she runs her Guest houses. She is a force to be reckoned with and at the same time one of the most generous people you could ever meet up with, our stay in her guest house was a real pleasure.
Lijiang like Dali is a completely rebuilt town and although it was built especially as a tourist trap it is also a lived in town with real residents going about there every day existence. Lijiang like Dali is a very beautiful town maybe even more so because unlike Dali with its arrow straight streets, Lijiang is is a town of spaghetti like twisting and turning streets. It is very easy to get lost in the town but after a short time one gets used to it and can learn to navigate it, after all it is a small town. We found that in the old town of Lijiang unlike Dali it is very expensive to eat out in restaurants but one doesn't have far to go to eat out a lot cheaper in the new town.



Whilst in town we one day took a taxi from Mamas guest house towards a small monastery on a mountain outside of town, the ride there and back was atrocious, it was one mass of enormous pot holes the whole way. Once there on the hillside and in spite of the almost never ending rain or drizzle it was like being in another world.

The forest all around was very old and some of the trees one could only guess at their age by their girth. Right up behind the not so impressive monastery there was a path leading up to a sacred pool containing very large fish swimming lazily to and fro. Leading into the pool there were and because of the rain lots of streams draining into the pool. I felt like it was really if not sacred pool at the very least magical. We spent several days in Lijiang enjoying the town and its many advantage points and views, a lovely place Lijiang.
Next stop Zhongdian or as it is better known Shangrila.






]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/williwinkle/western_china/1188406680/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/williwinkle/western_china/1188406680/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/williwinkle/western_china/1188406680/tpod.html Thu, 29 Nov 2007 15:41:38 -0500 Us oldies making a go of travelling through western and southern China

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Dali, China

We arrived in Dali it was evening and it was raining. We booked ito a hostel which was just outside of the the old towns walls and right up against the southern gate and by its name was very promising but because of the stink emanating from the toilet we decided to find another place to stay. With ease we found a cheap hotel, cheaper even than the hostel and it was inside the towns walls, altogether it was better situated, cleaner and a lot better. There was a stream running past the hotel, one of many flowing through the town. The sources of the streams flowing through the town all of them come straight off the mountain just outside of the town walls. The town needless to say is very picturesque, and although it is called the old town in actual fact it is a completely new town that has only recently been rebuilt on the site of the old town destroyed in an earthquake. The "Old town of Dali" attracts masses of tourists and we arrived right at the end of summer holidays and within days many of them made their way back home, all the same there were still quite a lot of tourists left during our stay there.
The walled town of Dali is situated between a range of mountains called the Cashgan range and a large lake called Erhai lake and two days after our arrival in the town we went on a trip we went on a trip around the Lake. It is a large lake with a circumference of over 160km. It is a beautiful lake one side of the lake is not like the other and most of the people inhabiting this area are of the Bai people, one of the many small minorities in the Yunnan province. The Bai people have there own language dress and very different customs from the Han Chinese. We visited a large house that has been turned into a tourist site where Bai actors put on a show of their dancing for us tourists, we were the only westerners there. The house was large and beautiful of which I took many pictures. From there we went into several villages along the way and around the lake. On the far side of the lake the villages seemed much poorer and many of the people of the area are fishermen who layed their catch, mainly shrimp on the side of the road for miles alongside often taking up half the width of the road, the whole way smelt of drying fish.
Today we went up the Cashgan mountain range and runs alongside the lake we went up via an open cable car it rained the whole way up, needless to say we got wet. In spite of the rain the view was outstanding.
After we'de arrived, we dried out and the weather cleared up a bit. The views were breathtaking and it was so quiet and because of the rainy weather there were almost no other travellers, we had the mountain to ourselves.
The day after tomorrow we travel on to Lijiang and from there to Shangrila.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/williwinkle/western_china/1188152400/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/williwinkle/western_china/1188152400/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/williwinkle/western_china/1188152400/tpod.html Mon, 26 Nov 2007 15:00:50 -0500 Us oldies making a go of travelling through western and southern China

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Kunming, China

China but Cooler now

We have just moved to a city of just over 3 million called Kunming, what a difference. Whereas the previous town Yangshou was real HOT, hot muggy and humid, here in Kunming it is called the city of eternal spring, and not for nothing. In Kunming in the evenings people will often be going around wearing jackets and it rains here more often but the major reason for the mild weather is because of the altitude of 1850 meters. In Yangshuo we slept every night with the air condioner on all night here we have no air condioner and have no need.
Toda the second day of our stay in the city we have come up against Chinese bureucracy at its most stiflling whilst trying to renew our visa and we were givin the grand runaround but unbeaten we succeeded in the end.
Today we travelled to a very large lake to the south of the city called Dianchi Lake, and to west of the lake there is a large hilly area overlooking the lake, we went up by cable car almost to the top of the hill and had a grand view of the lake and the surrounding area. The first part of the journey on the cable car doesn't go upwards but goes over a small part of the lake then it does goes up in an almost verticle climb. Going up takes you past small feilds clinging pecariously to the hillside, small pagodas and on mass of jungle like vegetation.
In the towns and cities enormous amounts of people get around on very efficient electric Vespa like vehichles obviously Chinese made. The roads are choked up with whole rivers of people who have definate suicidal intentions when on there motor bike or even just walking across the roads here. For us it was difficult to get used to the way people drive and their recklesness.

We took a bus south east of the city which is very touristy and for a good reason (I forgot the name of the area) where there is a whole region they call 'The Stone Forest'and it is literally one mass of Karst outcrops like giant termite hills or a stone forest. Getting in is quite expensive but definitely worthwhile, it was both fascinating and beautiful.
Saturday we will be going to new place called Dali which is a part of the Tibetan Plateu and surrounded by not so high 5000 meter mountains and much larger mountains going up to over 7000 meters, Dali is only 50 meters higher than here in Kunming.

We will be glad when August comes to an end then all of the billions of Chinese tourists go back home.
P.S. Again I have to apologise, these pictures are not mine only from Dali on will I be able to present my own photoghaphs.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/williwinkle/western_china/1195585740/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/williwinkle/western_china/1195585740/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/williwinkle/western_china/1195585740/tpod.html Sun, 25 Nov 2007 12:13:19 -0500 Us oldies making a go of travelling through western and southern China

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Guilin, China



China more but not of the same thing.
Each new place I go to is like going to a new and different country and its still China. The people the language the country side and the heat every thing is completely different.
Here in Yangshuo it is HOT and HUMID, sometimes so much so that it is definitely quite unpleasant going out midday and often in the evening the heat persists. Then suddenly we get a downpour which may last a few moments which it doesn't help at all, just raises the humidity but if it lasts longer than it can cool the air down quite a few degrees.
This town is loaded with foreigners Yanks, Brits, Italians, French you name them they are all here and they all congregate in West Street, where all the souvenir shops are and of course the restaurants, all tending to their various needs.
The day before yesterday spent the morning floating down one of the rivers flowing around this town on motor less raft, it was simply idyllic that is until it started to become hot but by then we had reached the end.
Not only in the streets but even on the water there is someone trying to rip you off. We have become quite adept at turning people away from us with their "buy this or travel with us" and what ever their spiel is . There are also those who would just like to practice English on us, but often even this is a trap of some kind. They are a very enterprising people these Chinese.


Yesterday went in an all day trip to a place called Longji Terraces it is a very hilly area with rice terraces all over the place, it is a very beautiful place. In the valley down below there is an ethnic minority, I forgot their name, where the women have the longest hair in the world, its in the Guinness book of records, so they say. It was a very long day. When you look at the maps one place doesn't look far from the other but in actual fact China is enormous and what may seem like one place is next to another may be a whole days journey. Needless to say we got back shattered. Today we took off for a bit of a rest. We have just finished our evening meal spent in a restaurant jutting out above the Li River, the food was good and the view idyllic. Altogether the whole area of Guilin and Yangshou is like one big fairy land a place where many of Chinas most famous poets have written about and lauded the beauty and tranquility of the area. The towering hills jutting up all over the place straight up out of the plain with rivers and streams flowing every where. We took two raft trips down the rivers in the area and the experience was so calming and layed back, the weather was ideal the panoramas at every turn of the head were so astounding. At one point I stripped off and went for a swim an experience that to the feeling of being at home with nature.
After Yangshou we took a plane to Kunming, another story.
Ron
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