Harrow Yangshuo!

29th April - Yangshuo "Chinese Village" my Arse!!

We got off the overnight train, pretty tired but looking forward to a shower even moreso. I also, was in desperate need of the, shall we say "facilities". Over the course of the overnight train journeys I have been training myself to use the lavatory as rarely as possible. And by the lavatory I mean the hole in the ground that the Chinese call the toilet. I will get you a picture, but so far I have not wanted to stay in the vicinity of the toilets long enough to get a photo. Basically you just squat over these holes in the ground and hope the "water" on the floor is just that, then you emerge, feeling rather "uuugh" douce yourself in anti-bacterial handwash and hope for the best. So if you can imagine the state of toilets on trains at home, imagine what these "squatties" as we've been calling them are like on trains that you're on for maybe 17 hours! I managed the duration of every overnight train with just one squattie visit - dehydration FTW.

From Guilin where our train arrived into, we fought our way onto a public bus to Yangshuo. It was a public holiday in China so we literally did have to adopt the Chinese "me first" mentality and jostle onto the bus. After takin the 1.5 journey to Yangshuo we got a bit of a shock.  Firstly, this is the description of Yangshuo according to our tour itinerary:

"Discover the village life surrounding the spectacular karst hills, river scenery and green paddy fields in one of China's best known scenic spots."

What we were actually greeted with was pretty much China's answer to *insert token Spanish sun holiday strip here*. It was crazy. Firstly, it was mega buzy. Secondly, for the first time on our trip we were not the only "big noses" around (we found out that the Chinese often refer to us Westerners as "big noses"!) We found ourselves staring at them, like we'd been stared at purely because it was such a novelty to not be the only westerners for a change! The streets were lined with tourists, both chinese and western. Loads of restaurants WITH ENGLISH MENUS. This was crazy - like so far on our trip if we weren't with Xu, to order our food in Chinese, we just pointed to a picture or made our own food. So to actually be able to choose exactly what we wanted was so exciting. We meandered through the streets, in awe of it's accessibility, and eyeing the lovely clothes and souveniers on display and made our way to our hotel, The Explorer - just off the bustling West Street in Yangshuo.

Upon arrival, we were genuinely shattered and starving. Unfortunately, despite the bright and airy reception area mine and Miri's room was a bit disappointing. We were on the ground floor and well the room was pretty damp and came with a leaky shower in the en suite. Determined not to be affected by this we resolved to spend as little time in the room as possible and rendez-vous'd with the rest of the group for some food. After having some food we took a stroll around the market streets. Got some earings for 2Y (24cent) and a bracelet for 5Y. Big spender, me.

That night we went to explore the Yangshuo nightlife. Some of our group had met a guy in our hotel in Shanghai that recommended we search out a hostel called Monkey Jane's when in Yangshuo and hit up their rooftop bar. We went in search of this place, and ended up at another rooftop bar called Mono. After one drink here we meandered further up a dark alley and stumbled upon the required haunt. Climbed up the numerous floors and emerged into youth hostel heaven. Bar with couches, fellow travellers and a raucous atmosphere...oh hello home! We decided to make a bit of a night of it, got chatting with fellow travellers, and played some beer pong!

We had great fun, it was such a laugh to mix with other young travellers. That was the one downside of our trip so far - when you're staying in hotels the opportunities to mix with other travellers is limited. We had a right laugh, but I made the somewhat uncharacteristic sensible choice not to move onto a nightclub as we had a early rise the next morning for a cycling trip into the countryside. Crashed about 2am.

30th April - Yangshuo - Extreme Country Cycling, Chinese Style

Got up feeling a little tired and no doubt dehydrated, but met a few others from the group for breakfast. Afterwards we met with Xu at 8.30am and he introduced us to Rose, our local guide who would be leading our biking tour for the day. We picked up our bikes, and began to make our way out of the city. Traffic in Yangshuo is crazy as it is all over China and the mentality seems to be "just go and hope for the best". We followed Rose and soon we were out of bustling Yangshuo and in the heart of the Chinese countryside.

The scenery was breathtaking. The hills nearby reminded me of pictures I've seen of Thailand, unbelieveable. Along the way we passed many paddy-fields and saw many locals going about their business, plowing their fields with water buffalo.

We cycled along these hidden paths through the karst countryside, until we reached Moon Hill. Some of our group decided to climb the steps up to the top, but after a strenuous morning biking I decided to stay with the rest of the group at the bottom of the hill, rehydrating with a bottle of water and a delicious diet coke! After Moon Hill we cycled to a local farmers house where we were prepared some local dishes to share Chinese style. The food was delicious, green beans, pork dish, chicken dish, pumpkin dish - all prepared really simply but lots of flavour packed in. Was really delicious and refuelled us for our cycle back to Yangshuo.

The cycle back to Yangshuo was M.E.N.T.A.L. We battled with everything from massive buses, mopeds, cyclists and pedestrians for our spot on the road. With the "me first" attitude held by all you really have to just go for it and try and be as safe as possible! Once you got onto an open stretch of road the breeze was really refreshing as it was blistering heat that day.

By the time we got back to Yangshuo we were one hot mess. I mean we were soaking with sweat (get a good mental image there Fr.) and in dire need of a shower. No lie, that was the best shower I've ever had. Although I think any shower at that stage would have felt like the best shower ever. After my shower, I went to a small bar across the street from my hotel that had one of those swingy chairs on their first floor balcony and just watched the world go by.

That evening we all got together for our last night in Yangshuo and decided how else to spend but back at ole Monkey Janes! We set up shop back beside the beer pong table and started to play. To explain beer pong to those that haven't been lucky enough to play - two people play each other, one standing each end of a long table. At the end of each side there are 5 cups, a large bottle of beer split between the five cups. Each opponent has two balls which they must aim to land in the other person's cups. If you land the little ball in one of their cups they must drink the beer. The first person to end up drinking all their cups loses!

We had some amount of fun there and mixed with lots of others for a great night. Chris the resident beer pong champion struggled through lots of games and god love him, retaining his title left him a little worse for wear! Don't know where the hours went but I believe we were still in the local KFC at 5am! Luckily the next day we hadn't too many plans so we had recovery time!

1st May - Yangshuo - Recovery Massage

Well what better way to get over a long day, and even longer night than with a full body massage. A few of my fellow travellers had been for a massage the day before and judging by their smiling, relaxed demeanour afterwards I thought "why not!". After lugging around my rucksack, I thought I'd sacrifice the "relaxation massage" for the more thorough "therapeutic massage". This would work out the muscles big time. After breakfast I popped into the massage place, Dr. Ying's or something and well I'm not gonna say "enjoyed", but more "endured" the hour of hard work the lady put into working out the knots in my back.

Afterwards we had some downtime before meeting Xu to head to, yes you guessed it, ANOTHER night train! We rendez-vous'd about 5pm and got the local bus back to Guilin. We were all quite hungry at this stage, so Xu brought us to the best option available near the train station, a "steakhouse". Any steakhouse that serves your "meat" with a side of spaghetti, and a fried egg, with optional sides of prawn crackers, fruit, popcorn, salad, cream and yogurt ain't no normal steakhouse. Anywhoo, none of us died so hey could be worse.

At about 7.30pm we all boarded what would be our last night train from Guilin to Hong Kong.

In the compartments next to us were a group of children. My first thought was "these bastards better not be up all night" but then after starting our journey some of them came to talk to us. Their English was amazing. They had been learnin English for 5 years and were only about 7-12yrs old. They were so cute. They were obviously pretty well off as they told us they were all going to London this summer to a summer school to do English. These kids were so smart, they'll be running China in a few years. Luckily they were polite kids and hit the hay early. Next stop...Hong Kong!