China: Yangshuo

  Guilin, China
Wednesday, January 31, 2007

We got a 26 hour train ride which actually lasted around 28 hours on what must have been the slowest smelliest train ever. Not sure if I've mentioned the tiolet over here yet but they are all squat tiolets, which basically means that the tiolet bowls are flush with the floor so the idea is that you squat down to do your business. In the hotels though its fine as they have all been western tiolets so to date all I've had to do is actually stand over the bloody things. As you c an imagine though the girls haven't been that lucky. Anyway the problem with these tiolets is that 1) Nobody seems to know what a flush does and 2) their aim isn't always that accurate. So on our 28 hours train journey we sometimes got an overwhelming smells of stale piss. It was just depending on which way the train was travelling at that particular time. From what I could see we seemed to be going in a zig zag direction to our final destination point at Guilin. From there we got an hour bus drive to the town of Yangshuo where we would be spending our next 3 days. If I thought the driving was crap during the day at night its even worse. We had busues pass us out going into a bend with no possible way of seeing whats around the other side.

01 Our Hotel in Yangshou

We got there anyway and as soon as I steped off the bus I was loving it. First off our hotel is called Fawlty Towers and the guy at reception is called Maneul. Will get those pics up soon. Secondly its a small town so there isn't anywhere near as much traffic or hooting of horns. Lastly the whole area including the town is completely surrounded by hill, like the one in the pic

33 Cruising down the river

And even though it was 11 at night and I couldn't see everything I felt a little more at ease here.

Again Mill took us off on a quick sightseeing tour of the town where we went to a restaurant that she know and managed to get myself a chicken burger and chips which was excellent.

We had 3 full days here so we could do things at our leisure. The first day we went kayaking. It was brilliant. Yangshuo is surrounded by very steeps hills and rivers so the sights are beautiful.

05 Hitting the river

We spent a very nice 3 or 4 hours just drifting down the river stopping every so often to take in the sights. As we went down kids were coming down to the river banks shouting"Hello" and waving madly at us. Our guide pulled out a big stick of sugar cane, which he passed out between us.

03 Bec and Me enjoying the sugar cane

Basically you have to take a bite out of it, like chewing on a tree, chew down to squeeze out the juice and then spit out the remains. It does tend to get between the teeth and it took a few bite to get into it but it wasn't bad. Anyway who cares, I was in the middle of a river, the sun beating down and amazing sights all around me, how good was that. This place is my second favourite place so far after the Great Wall. In the afternoon some of us just relaxed and walked around the town. Then that night we went out and got ourselves well trollied for the first time since we got here.

Th next day was a rough start, I felt a little tired. But at 2 we got a bus out to a river cruise. Just to let ye know that the weather here has been so good that I'm walking around in my t-shirt and have actually gotten myself a bit of sun burn.

31 The gang sitting up front

So we sat on the front of the boat for an hour and a half just cruising down another part of the river. The ride on the bus back was a bumpy one but we got to see some of the proper country side. Passing by rice terraces, orange tree groves, sugar cane fields the whole lot.

Again that evening some of us went to have a bit of dinner but we all retired early for the bike ride today. We were up at 8 to get our bikes and head out into the country side. It has been a few years since I was on one so it took a few minutes to get used to it, but I got there eventually. We headedf out of town and took some, I wouldn't call em road but more like paths out into the countryside. It was another bumpy trip but again the view were great. We got to Moon Hill, where some of the lads hiked up to look at the views, I let this one go as we have a bit og hiking to do over the next two days. But I did give Dina my camera so it was fine, and what a good job she did too.

48 Dina with my camera

 After the hike we cyclied a few minutes to a local farmers house where a meal was laid out for us all. We sat there for a while enjoying the food, sun and views before heading back into town. The rest of the day was spent by me trying to get this thig updated, excpet for the bit of dinner earlier.

Tomorow we get a 4 hour bus ride to the Longji Valley where we'll spend the next few days hiking around more of the country side.