GuilinApr 24, 2010
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| 24th April sleeper train, yes yes yes I love sleepertrains. This one was 25rs long which meant that I could have a lie in aswel. After packed days it was nice to just chill out lie in bed just chatting, snacking and Reading my books. I've started enjoying books again and have been book swapping with the one I aquired from the houton hostel in Beijing. The loitering guy eventually came to speak to me when iwas in bed and the other two were asleep! He wanted to know what free trade was. I said I didn't know, which is half true (without sounding too ignorant). But he got off before us. The train was practically empty so we padded ourselves out with bundles of divers and pillows. Even got a chance to catch up on my journal which I guess you've found out by now. We've just checked into our hostel and are already excited to hit the night food Market and get planning our Li river trip for tomorrow. We've also got distracted again and may try to spend a night in Yangshou which is meant to be even more beautiful than here. One week left in china and everything is getting easier, warmer, hostels more populated with English speakers, places more plesant and the language barrier is decreasing. It's going to be a good week. X 25th April Up and out (after a pot noodle breakfast) to our transfer to the Li river. So far today has been the best day. Breakfast was accompnied by the black keys album playing out of real speakers not just headphones. Then there was only Lou, Karen and I on the trip with one of the couples we met in shanghai hostel?!? Were starting to realise how we bump into other travellers. It did rain and was extremely cold but the trip down the Li river was absolutky breathtaking, I'm not sure my mouth was closed at any point. The river got so thin and the limestone krasts were rediculously beautiful and couldn't work them out (again geeky geographer). We were also on a dragon boat which is pretty much a bamboo raft and we all balanced on it with our huge bags, water lapping up into it. It did actually look like a scene from jurrasic park and I wouldn't have believed it either. I'm still not sure I do now. Got to xingping and got a bus transfer straight to yangshou (on the tiniest most cramped bus ever, she just kept picking more people up when we wernt sure it was possible) and got to our hostel. It's a small village completely surrounded by the irregular krast peaks and the river but the streets are all packed with small shops bars and resteraunts it's like being at a tourist place in spain but oddly it's not too cheesy, it's just got a homely feel about it. Also bumped into loads of people we recognised from hostels and the boys from the cruise! One of them had just fell off a moped so was on the way to A&E but I'm sure well bump into them again as this place is tiny. We had Pizza for an evening meal and then went grocery shopping and had some drinks with card games. Our hostel has a free washing machine and the highest viewpoint in the village Which is a tiny platform built up stairs on the roof, we were the only ones up there and absolutely used the washine machine for all that it's worth, washed practiacally all of our clothes, thank god because they DEDFINATELY needed it. Probably not the best move as we have nothing to loose but were not missing out on this. Went to a bar and played beer pong, like a drinking ping pong, very addictive. Louise and I made friends with two Canadian girls and we played eachother on seperate teams. Not a clue who won but it was a tense match X |
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