Yangshuooooo

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Well, despite all my reservations my dodgy 'just give us your money and we'll sort it' china visa turned out to be OK - I just can't believe it was so easy to get! I crossed the boarder from Hong Kong to Shenzen where alas immigration stamped my kosher visa with a nice dodgy entrance stamp, so now each time I check in to a new hostel we have to have the 'where did you enter china' conversation! Ahh well, at least it's improving my chinese vocab!

I'm in a place called Suzhou at the mo.. it's cold, raining lots and has been for the last two days... in fact today was the first day my fleece moved from the bottom of my rucksack since I left NZ, a v sad day indeed :0( If it wasn't for the fact that I can't understand anyone or read anything I'd almost think I was back in Blighty! On the bright side it's a good chance to catch up on my blog!

My first stop was Yangshuo in Guangxi provence. I met an American guy, Greg, on the bus from the airport and we ended up travelling together for a few days. Luckily for me he spoke some Chinese so arriving wasn't quite the inital culture shock it might have been. The drive to Yangshuo from Guilin was amazing for two reasons. Firstly the scenery... I'd seen many pictures of Guilin and the surrounding area and the apparent beauty of it was one of the reasons I picked here as my first stop. And I'm soo pleased to say that here the real thing is just as stunning as the pictures. It's green, there are huge karsts rising steeply out of the rice fields below and its all shrouded in a hovering mist. The second reason..... I'll aways remember the journey for being my first lesson in driving chinese stylee.. in the rural areas where there's one lane in each direction and you want to overtake its kind of like a game of chicken. You pull out, honk your horn loudly at anything coming in the other direction and hope.... We were held up for a while where hoping hadn't quite done the job and there'd been a multi car accident. So many times I've sat on the M25 in the same sitation and just resided myself to going nowhere for a while... not here! You have the original lane of traffic, then a new lane forms as one load of cars/bikes/buses tries to sneak round on the grass verge, and another new lane forms as more cars try to sneak up the middle... so your one lane of traffic is now three! Our bus driver was clearly an expert at this because we'd soon queue jumped our way all the way to the front squeezing through gaps I wouldn't have driven a bicycle through let alone a bus!

Yangshou is touted in the LP as a backpacker haunt.. well there were backpackers there but it's also on the big tour group trail as well. The upside is that walking down the main tourist street there are lots of hotels, bars and restaurants with english speaking people and english written signs. Maybe not quite what you come to China for but it made it an easy start for me. As a few people said that I met there - it's a great place to come to practise your english! They all commented that they saw more westerners there than they'd seen anywhere else in China... and a week later I have to say I'm agreeing with them!

After checking into a hotel it was out into Yangshou for some food and beers. We met a tour guide (here it seems almost everyone is a tour guide.. or their cousin is) who took us along to a local place and I had my first experience of trying to explain vegetarianism in China. It's actually been easier than it was in Malaysia. The guide taught me the phrase to use and I've used it lots since... I always end up with the right food but I get a lot of strange looks - I can't decide if that's down to my attrocious pronounciation or a complete lack of comprehension as to why anyone would be veggie! Anyways, a few bars and a few more tour guides later we ended up in one particular bar where some locals were having an 18th birthday celebration. Ahh so young. Greg was trying to teach me to count to 10 in Chinese through a drinking game... hic... well, I was never going to win that one but the next day I did feel quite proud that I could remember the numbers 8 and 3, ahem ;0) ... well I can get up to 100 now you know! Reprieve came for my poor liver as we had our faces smeared in birthday cake, got dragged up on the dance floor and boogied away with glow sticks. Ahhh welcome to China.....

We ended up hiring one of the guides we'd met on the first night and after the usual painful price negociations we were off. First stop was a village 40mins away called Xingping. We'd chosen this guide becuase we could stay in his village overnight, which meant we needed to go to the markert to buy dinner. I'm always amazed by the markets in Aisa.. the range of bright coloured fruit and veggies that I could never even begin to name all layed out and looking yummy in the veggie aisle... and then there's the meat aisle. Hmm... perversely enough I often find this more fascinating than the veggie aisle. Ok so there's the small need to stop breathing for a while and ignore the flies but I think it's all those years of biology I did at uni kicking in as I try to work out whether it's a heart (and then which blood vessels u can still seel...), lung, intestine, brain etc. Some bit's are easy... the pigs head was a bit of a give away, as was the pigs tail and pigs trotter. The only one that did make me go oooooh was what I think was bowls of blood. Well, it was red, gloopy and at the end of the meat aisle... it looked like the women were congealling it into blocks... for which purpose I really didn't want to know!!

At Xingping we climbed one of the karsts... I'm not the most confident person on rocky surfaces and me and slippery rocky steps really don't go well together (so typically the carefull slow coach here was the only one that fell over! pahh) ... but a hot climb and some 1100+ something steps later, we were met with the most amazing views, over the town and along the Li River where we were to go next. Our boat journey along the river was about an hour I think... and I don't think there are many better ways you could spend your time! Sitting in the sun on the deck of a boat, surrounded by the stunning scenery and watching as normal life goes on around - water buffalo at the waters edge, people manovering round on bamboo rafts... When we'd arrived at Xingping we'd seen loads of larger boats go past - I think these were the bus loads of day trippers on their way from Guilin. Our journey was shorter (although apparently it's this part of the river that has the best views) but there were only five of us plus the boat man on our boat. Much more my kind of thing!!

Once off the boat we had about an hours walk to the village - more rice fields, orange trees, lovely scenery and a few close encouters with some water buffalo. And it was soooo peacefull. On the way we learnt all about the rice planting seasons... they plant rice up to three times a year and in the fourth quarter either plant nothing or something different. The oranges etc are grown to sell at market whilst the veggies they grow in their garden are for the family to eat. By luck we'd timed it perfectly to be meeting kids on their way home from school. I don't think too many westerners come out this way so we were a bit of a novelty... some scuttled past snatching glances back at us and laughing as they ran off, others wanted to stop and talk and have their photo taken with us. And for no fee either! Unheard off back in town!

We were about 10 mins from the village when the rain storm that had been threatening filnally started. It was one of the short but heavy downpours and oh my gosh we got soaked! Fortunately our guides family donated some dry clothes to us when we got to the village. And we got to have hot showers too!! Well... for shower read a bucket of hot water but sooo much better than the cold one I had hoped for! With my chinese limited to hello and thank you and our guides family not speaking any english I felt a little uncomfortable to start with. Greg was able to happily jabber away in chinese though and as the family just got on with their normal family stuff and left us to it I relaxed.. especially after the huge dinner they served up!!! To work off the excess we went for a short night walk around the village and the one thing that stood out for me was the noise of the toads - you wouldn't think that such a small thing could make such a load noise!! But I guess when there's lots and lots and lots and lots of them....

The next morning I discovered that this was the land of the mosquito... and perhaps not the best time to have left my insect repellant back in Yangshou! You could almost do a dot-to-dot of bites on my legs. The family was up early and we got up in time to see the kids go off to school. These children only had about a 45 min walk to school.. apparently some of the one's we'd seen yesterday have maybe 2.5 hours! Each way! And I thought I was hard done by with my 1 hour walk to school ;0) We walked back through the countryside to Xingping where we caught the bus back Yangshou and hired some bikes... last time I'd ridden a bike was with Liz around the vineyards of Marborough... after which we'd vowed never again.. well for a while at least ;0) And I have to say that cycling is sooo much easier after a few glasses of vino! Not this time tho! We cycled out of town and down to the Yulong river where we hopped onto a bamboo raft and spent a lazy few hours cruising along looking at more amazing scenery. It was really chilled... apart from the bit where a load of kids (western ones I might add!) decided we looked too dry and all started to clamber aboard our raft in a bid to sink it a bit. As the water rose up around our ankles I did start to wonder how I would word this one on my insurance claim.... fortunately that's as far as it got!

Back on the bikes we cycled to Moon Hill and the the Water Cave where there was the usual game of trying to spot the tiger/dog/titanic scene?!? that were supposedly in the rock faces (whoever comes up with half these things must be on drugs at the time...). Unlike most caves that I've been to where you're shepherded round in big groups, and god forbid you should try to touch anything, this was much more relaxed and just us and a caves guide. At the end of the cave system was a mud bath... you might be a weee bit suspect as to just how 'natural' it is (especially given the potential mud carrying containers that were dotted around) but it was sooo much fun. I've had a mud bath before where you're in something bath sized but this was much bigger and soo wierd to move round. It was kind of like sitting in a big pool of chocolate mouse. We came out a 5-10min walk away from the start and walked back through more stunning scenery (I need some new words to describe it!) and stood under a mini waterfall for 10 mins trying to remove the now dried in mud....to pass the time whilst it washed off we had a seemingly near continuous stream of water buffalo (or are they Ox? I get confused) walk by us, on their way home after a hard days work in the fields!! That has to be the most sureal showers I've ever had! On the way back to Yangsho we had just enough time to squeeze in a visit to a 1500 year old Banyan tree before collapsing with a few well earned beers.

The next morning Greg left to go back to Shenzen and I went off in search of somewhere cheaper to stay. After trudging round several hostels I found a dorm, negociated the price and rewarded myself by going for a foot massagge - was sooooo good and heaps better than the one we'd had in Malaysia. Later I had my first chinese lesson - I'd met some Chinese girls in the hostel bar who were studying english at uni. I think their entire class had gone on a trip to Yangshou in order to find people to practise their english on. So in exchange for me waffling on to them for a bit (apparently my Essex tones sound lurveely. Proper queens english like ;0)) they taught me all the must know phrases for bargaining etc. They even came back the next night to give me another lesson! I think they decided that I was their pet project... that and the fact that they quite fancied the french guy I was drinking with :0)

For my last day on Yangshou I went on a day trip to Longji to see some 700 year old rice terraces! I had wanted to go by public bus and stay overnight... but the thought of having to explain my way in chinese onto 3 buses just to get there was too much at this point. If I went back now I'd so do the 3 buses. It is a beautiful spot, high in the mountains and fairly constantly in cloud. The village of Ping an, about 3 hours by bus from Yangshou, is small but with increasing number of tourist 'hotels' being built, albeit in the traditional style of the local people (they are built over three levels, one for the animals, one for cooking and one for sleepin). We saw quite a lot of westerners but most were on day trips... it'd be great to be around at the start or the end of the day when the tour buses have all gone and you just get the place to yourself. Maybe when I come back next time.....

On the way to Ping an we stopped at a Yao (one of the 50+ minority cultures in China)village, where we saw women in traditional costume. At 16 the Yao girls cut their hair off and then never cut it again. As part of the tourist 'show' some of the women unroll their hair.... it's down to their feet and on the floor. Depending on whether the women are married, and if so whether they have children, the hair is worn up in different styles After lunch we were left to wonder off on our own up through the rice terraces for a few hours and just admire the scenery... when it decided to appear from behind the fog banks.... which would be right after my camera batteries ran out. arghhhh. ;0)

Next up.... Shanghai, Hangzhou, Suzhou and on to Bejing!

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