Yangshuo
Trip Start
Jul 08, 2007
1
4
31
Trip End
Sep 13, 2007
Yangshuo,
China
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
**Some advice for other travelers - if you go on an overnight train, wear ear pluggs!!**
We were woken up by one of the stuardesses at 6.30 as we were nearing our stop at Guilin. I leftover breakfast of bread and fruit and i was ready to face the new day. The new day revealed its self as a wave of heat as we exited the train. Man was it hot and humid!! From the train station we took a bus (1.5h) to where we will be spending the next two days. A small countryside town of Yangshuo which is one of the best known scenic attractions in China with amazing Limestone Karst.
Arriving in Yangshuo we walked down the main road to our hotel; Morning Sun Hotel. It is a nice hotel with aircinditioning in the rooms which is great!! Later in the day i met my new room mate Julius. As a group we had breakfast and George explained what was around in the town and what we could do.
After breakfast and the intro finished we were left to explore the town and surrounding area. There are shops all down the street and guys in the road trying to sell us stuph like poastcards, hat and everything else in between. One of these guys were playing a wooden flute in the street, I like the sound they make. I decided to buy one. He showed me the ones he had, demonstrated how he does it. I picked the one i liked and started bargening. This is the first serious bargening experiance. His starting price was 200 and through the haggling got him down to 150, i think i could have gotten him down further but first time, i will do better later on i hope... After i bought it we stood in the street and he tought me some of the more Asian songs. We played together for about a half hour and had a group of tourists standing around us watching!! i should have put down a hat and seen how much we could have gotten!!
I then went in search of some sustanence for breakfast and snacks and found a fruit stall, it was good fruit! Also i hit the jackpot - Muesli!! for breakfast, my favourite as im not much of a fan of the asian breakfast of even more noodles for breakfast as well as lunch as well as dinner!
We all met back at the hotel at 4 to head off to our river cruise which is to last 3hours round trip. It started out with a bus trip to the boat, then we set out in a canal boat type boat, but without all the stuff inside, just the chairs and big windows. The scenery was amazing, the start of it was where the painting for the Y5 note. Beautiful scenery!! At the furthest point up the river we stopped to strech our legs and have a look around. There were also people there trying to sell us more stuff.
Once back at the hotel we had the evening to do with as we want, there was an optional activity of going to watch some fishermen fissing with Coromarants. I decided to pass as i had something much more important that i had to do... cant remember what it was but there was. And you can just see coromarants anywhere without paying anything.
Before everyone else left i went out to dinner with Stine, Jenny and Vanessa at a local resturant - Cloud 9. The other three were going to watch the fishing later. The meal was great and i had to finish up all of the food, wich is such a had thing for me to do as the other 3 had to go to the fishing before the meal was fiished.
I met them when they got back and we went to a local bar with Stine and Jen. There was a live band in the bar and the other people would go and request a song, the band would play and the person would sing along with the band. They are all great singers and can sing so there was no chance i was going to do it there!! There were aslo dice cups on the table and we played some games with the locals!! It was a good night11
Wan An (Good Night i think)
