Guilin - Hey I couldn't think of anything witty to put!

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Finally managed to add photos to all our blogs so scroll down for some photo fun. Not too much fun mind you, most of you ARE at work…

Paul - A quick note, the train station in Wuhan was quite possibly the most unattractive piece of crap I have ever seen. The toilet was a trough! Enough said!

Got into bed and fell straight asleep. Train was nice, one of the newer ones I think. Arrived at Guilin at about 12 and got harassed by a lot of touts ("Come to my hotel, it's a hostel!!") before getting on a bus and finding the hostel we were aiming for pretty easily. Booked in for a night as it seems very nice (and very cheap!). First impressions of Guilin are that it is very clean and the scenery is wonderful. Lots of little peaks surround the city, as if plonked there randomly, and the lovely river Li runs straight through the centre. Very nice indeed.

Had a shower, much to Laura's delight, as we hadn't showered for about 48 hours now. When it's roughly 30 degrees outside every day and night you get pretty damn sweaty. Walked down by the river as it is about thirty seconds from our hostel and wandered over to Elephant Hill. It's called that as it apparently resembles an elephant dunking it's trunk into the water.

Laura - Guilin is so pretty. It actually has trees and parks and fresh air! The nicest city we’ve been to in China so far. I was so happy when we arrived, seeing all the greenery and finding a clean, cheap place to stay. After sleeping on buses, boats and trains for the past few nights it will be nice to sleep in a proper bed! Elephant hill was very pretty, and we had really good views from the top of the river and mountains. The river here actually looks clean and we could see people swimming in it and fishermen wading. I even had a paddle in it and posed on top of an elephant for an amusing photo. We saw lots of wildlife up the hill - huge black butterflies, crickets, and rainbow-coloured beetles. It’s so nice to be in the countryside.

After that we walked back along the river and stumbled across the 2006 Asia Supermodel competition. Very random. They were painting the elephant hill in water colours (rather talentlessly). We got shouted at by a guard for getting too close to the beauties, before we saw him going off to get a sneaky picture of them with his mobile phone!

Went for some tea in a very nice restaurant, which was the usual low price. We avoided the restaurants with an array of animals (mostly endangered) in cages outside of them - snakes, turtles, birds, (domestic) rabbits…. Lovely.

Then we walked through an outdoor market and put my haggling skills to good use, buying a necklace and seal with my name in Chinese characters (engraved in front of us). These came to less than one pound fifty! Anyway we’re very tired so we’re off to bed now. We have another busy day ahead of us, involving walking around parks and enjoying the picturesque views…

Paul - Yeah so, the beauty contest. What a disappointment. No one really worthy of a photo so there isn’t any. Sorry Neal. The girls, however, were supremely talented artists. Look out for their work… hitting the Tate Modern some time soon!

It’s very muggy here, probably the most humid place we’ve been in, and its midnight almost and we’re both sweating. A lot of bugs about too so a few bites tomorrow I think. .

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