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Published: October 28th 2011
11th October we bid farewell to Lijiang and flew to Kunming. After some difficulty with the directions to the hostel (I blame the hostel directions which told us to get off the bus after 3 stops...this completely messed us up, and they didn't tell us we needed to cross the road to catch the next bus...) and lots of wandering around in the heat with heavy backpacks and sore legs we eventually made it to our hostel. We had a private room, not as luxurious as it sounds, it was a bit smelly, but can't complain for the price. Also the view from the roof top bar was quite cool overlooking the city.
We had a yummy mushroom casserole dish which we cooked our meat and veg (not meant to sound rude) in, a bit like the hot pot but not spicy),and at the end the waiter added some broth to it and it was then a very very tasty mushroom soup for us to finish the meal with..yum yum yum!
12th - we headed to a park and saw some black swans there swimming on the lake. When we got back to our hostel we looked over the
mushroom casserole
may not look like much but it was super yummy!balcony from the bar to see all the chefs from the restaurant below (where we ate night before) lined up and a woman at the front calling a register, then they all sang a song! This is something that appears to be common practice in restaurants - at about 4.30pm they all seem to do this. Chefs first and then followed by waiters/waitresses.
Later we looked on our noticeboard to see what tours the hostel offered and one of the tours was to a "dwarf village" whereall the people were dwarves dressed up in very strange cotumes. It looked a bit like a cross between the Wizard of Oz and Legoland. Unfortunately we were leaving the next morning though so we didn't get a chance to see this "treat."
In the evening we wandered around the streets where we saw similar sights to Beijing - such as people with missing limbs and burn scars singing into microphones for money. We also saw one man who was lying on an electric trolley type contraption with whatever was left of his body covered by a cloth. These sorts of things have really brought home to us how sheltered we are
and how lucky we are to live in a country where if (god forbid) anything awful should happen to us we would be able to receive treatment for free and then be provided with money to help support us following this. We also saw lots more animals being kept in awful conditions including 100's of turtles/terripins crammed into bowls, rabbits on top of each other in cages, (?) squirrels...the list goes on.
Anyway we managed to find somewhere to eat and then we went back to the hostel. I made the mistake of ordering the cheap "draught" beer. I should have realised that this was going to be abig mistake when it was poured out of a big plastic bottle which looked very similar to a dodgy cider bottle. Needless to say one pint later I felt very ill indeed and was very very sick. Michael would like you all to know that he got a cold as a result, because I put the air conditioning on in our room as I felt a bit feverish. Poor, poor Michael....
13th- we left early to catch our flight to Guilin (which was in a small plane with flowers painted
on!) Unfortunately in our rush we lost the IPod which had directions to our hostel on (whoops!). Luckily we both had vague memories of how to get there and we actually had the smoothest journey so far. All the more impressive as we were staying in a small place called XingPing and the journey involved several bus changes, taxis and walking to get there.
XingPing itself is lovely - lying on the river Li and surrounded by limestone peaks (Sam I wish you had been there to tell us all about how they were formed!). There were lots of artists sitting by the river painting and drawing some amazing pictures of the scenery.
That evening I snuck out to buy a few bits for Michael's birthday, which was a bit difficult as everywhere in XingPing shuts down at 5pm - also people tend to wander off and leave their stalls so you can't buy anything even when you want to....oh and they mainly all sell dresses, bags, pashminas and fans which was tempting but I don't think Michael would really have appreciated any of those.
We had a very quiet night that night as anywhere that stayed
open past 5pm was completely shut by 8pm. Lights out full works, pretty much like being a black out zone I'd imagine.
14th - Michael's birthday
Michael mad eth brilliant choice of taking a bamboo raft down the river to a nearby town/village. It was beautiful - we set off at 7am and spent 2 hours going along the river on the raft (which I suspect was made from bamboo shaped PVC rather than real bamboo) watching the sun rise over the peaks, people washing their clothes in the river, water buffalo swimming and bathing, farmers washing their horses (note-the woman was doing a much better job of this her horse was lovely and calm, the man's horse was bucking everywhere). To start with on the journey we pretty much had the river to ourselves which was great.
After the 2 hours the bamboo raft driver helped us off and we started our16km hike back to XingPing along the river side - with two crossings to be made along theway. Lots of haggling required for the price to cross the river - to be honest it was tempting to swim as people were asking us for about 5pounds
for what was going to be a 3 minute crossing. Although we were won over by a man who told us that I was very pretty and Michael was very handsome "like movie stars!" What a line! The walk took us through a few tiny villages/hamlets amd by some farmland where wesaw lopts of locals working hard. Also we saw lots more people with curbed spines from all the carrying of heavy loads. All of them would look at us suspiciously at first before breaking into a huge smile when we said Ni hao(hello). One man at the side of the road sold us abottle of coke and water and laughed that we didn't have enough money on us (we were 1yuan short) he happily let us off! Another man offered us a lift back to XingPing in his taxi type thing and realising we didn't have enough money laughed and pointed saying loudly "no money, no money" yes hilarious white people with no money!!
Due to XingPing not exactly being a party place we had a quiet evning and packed ready to head to Yangshuo the next day.
15th - powercut in the hostel -this is a
fairly regular occurence in China (well it has been whilst we've been here). Got the bus to Yangshuo (only 40 minutes) We had heard that Yangshuo was pretty touristy but we hadn't realised it would basically be like going to a Chinese version of Malia/Magalouf! Neon lights everywhere, hundreds of bars and cafes and lots and lots of Chinese- and more Wetserners than we have seen anywhere else in China.
That afternoon we joined a cooking class-led by "Jennifer" who waswas a small chef with attitude and a great sense of humour (chinese people all seem to have a great sense of humour and sometimes they are funny without even meaning to - for example when they say "all you foreigners look the same to us" without realising that this may sound a little racist). First Jennifer took us to the market, which was packed with all sorts of vegetables, meat and animals. I don't want to see what we saw in there again. Rabbits, chickens piled on top of each other ready for picking and killing. At the back a dog's skinned carcass was hanging up and behind this were dogs cramped into tiny cages and cats in
the same conditions. Dead dogs were also being cut up and skinned in front of the other living dogs. We saw one just killed dog being dragged past us (it was soaking and dripping from having just been drowned). I walked off at this point-luckily for me as Michael then witnessed a dog being drowned. Obviously this raised a number of questions and discussion in he group. Like why were we more upset to see odgs in this condition than the chickens and the rabbits, is it right that we give dogs a personlity but not the other animals as much?.......
After that cheery experinec we went to the cooking school to make 5 dishes (3 with meat in unfortunately). We were each given a HUGE cleaver for chopping along with a wok etc in a little area for cooking etc. After watching Jennifer expertly prepare each dish we had a go. We made eggfried dumplings, pork and vegetables, chicken and msuhrooms steamed, spicy fried aubergine, green vegetables with crsuhed garlic. The class was lots of fun and the food was really good too. We both managed to eat the meat...funny how the smell of good food seems to
erase your memory temporarily!
After this we rushed to a pubwhich we knew would be showing the Liverpool Man U game, our first football match sincearriving in China. we all know the score I won't go into detail. Then we headed to a Chinese bar where a woman was singing karaoke very very badly and miserably (if you've ever seen the episode of Teachers with Carol singing to Kurt this was pretty much the Chinese version of this event) Happy Birthday celebration Michael!!
16th October -DRIFTING (over to Michael!)
An amazing way to spend the day. WE got "picked up" by a woman who met us at our hostel and walked us to a tour agency and told us to wait and never came back. After about an hour of waiting we got onto a bus with a few Chinese and two French guys and off we went. We arrived at the bottom of the river and we got our waterproof slippers??? which only went upto size 8 1/2 and I'ma size 10/11. Needless to say my feet hurt. WE also got our locker key and then got on another bus which reeked of fish. We got
to the start point and there were loads of people taking our photographs amd shouting "number 6" at us. We were given tiny helmets and life jackets and got into our rubber dingies (2 to a boat). After a water fight with everyone we wereallowed to go...by this I mean they threw us down the river down a 10metre drop and we went crashing and dropping down for 70minutes with a fair few screams fomr others (Katie: "and from Michael!") It was awesome! When we got off our dingie we were greeted by little old ladies selling ginger tea. We bought a cup and it blew our heads off! We then had to dry off and get our bus. Unfortunately we hadn't realised how wet we were going to get and had not brought a change of clothes or a towel unlike the Chinese people who were there. I was OK because I had swimming shorts and my quick dry AFC top so I just stood in the sun for 10 minutes unlike Katie who had jean shorts and a vest top. Katie was all stroppy (Katie: "no I wasn't I was just a little perturbed") and wet so we
bought her the world's sexiest pair of shorts/boxers??? (see photos). They sell evrything everywhere they might be able to make some money in China. Then we went off to buy/look at our photos at store number 6! WE asked how much and the lasy said 100yuan for one picture so we said no and walked out but she ran after us and said 5yuan for one, so we bought two! We caught the same bus back and were suprisingly tired but we still hot the town as I needed to watch real football so....bottom line AFC won I was happy (Felt like my Xmas day, Katie had Panda day!)
17th October - cycling - PLOP! (Michael's xmas day number 2)
Mike: Best day ever! Katie fell in a wet ditch. She came right off her bike Ha ha ha! It was the funniest thing I've ever seen!
we woke up early and decided to take a bike ride so we hired 2 mountain bikes from the hostel. We set off with no end destination in mind which was nice. WE were cycling for around 10 minutes when my seat collapsed and gears stopped working, so we took
an uncomfortable ride back (Katie: Michael has failed to point out that I took his bike after his seat fell down, so in fgact it was juct me who had the uncomfortable ride!!) When exchnaging our bikes we were told that the mountain bikes always broke even though they were more expensive and we should get the regular bikes. So we got some money back and rode off on our pink Alice bikes. The slogan read "Alice, precisely the right choice" (precisely the right choice as long as you do not want to go up any hills or down any hills,or through a farmer's field......) Good news is we did have bells on our bikes! We rode along some busy roads and then turned down a more quiet road and down alleyways until we reached some farmers fields with a narrow path running through. The scenery was amazing and so we decided to ride along this. As we were riding aling there were rice paddies on either side of us (which have water at the bottom) Along the way the path got narrower and narrower. At one point we had to get off to push our bikes up a short
piece of wood which was posing as a short brisge over some of the water running through the fields. We got accross and had the difficult task of getting back onto our bikes. KAtie managed to get on her bike but then she wobbled as she was taking off and this is when she fell sideways to the left, taking the bike with her between her legs!! Plop straight into the rice paddy right into allthe muddy water!! Therewas a farmer in the next field and Katie was a little concerned that he would be annoyed but he appeared to be laughing as well. After this we rode through the fields for a few more hours (Katie had a wet and muddy bottom and side!) until we were too tired and went back to hostel.
18th-October- last day in Yangshuo, lots of walking, visting some peaks and watching locals along the river bank.
19th October - Katie's Busday
WE woke up early to catch 7:30am bus to Naning. The bus was big and comfy and we had a few stops on the way. When we arrived in Nanning 8 hours later we had to find our bus
to get near to our hostel. The instructions we had said "take the bus 6 from inside not outside the station" we asked the tiocket office lady by pointing at Lonely planet phrases as they couldn't speak English and we still are not quite fluent in Mandarin!! WE were ushered upstairs by a man wqhere therewere millions of buses, we asked someone again and we were asked to "wait one moment" by a woman who appeared to be radioing for assistance!!....20 minutes later a lady came down who spoke English and she told us where to get the bus (4/5 second walk away!!) Also the bus was outside the station, it was definitely outside, stupid instructions! WE got in the bus paid the 10 pencefare and 20 stops later got off and walked the 15 minutes to our hostel. WE checked in then headed out to get KAtie a birthday meal. We splashed out and went to a place in the Loney planet with two pound signs next to it, rather than the normal cheapest one pound sign. The restaurant was in a courtyard with rooms off the courtyard. We were put in a room with one table in and
the door was shut and we were left in there on our own! Luckily someone did show us a menu and we splashed out and ordered duck, which was pretty average to be honest! We heaed back to the hostel and we watched Transformers with a few beers and some crisps! Happy 26th Birthday Katie!
20th October - Nanning is dull with not a lot to do! WE got our bus tickets to Vietnam, then wandered around Nanning and went to "Dico's" which wehave seen evywhere in China and is their version of KFC, which they also have hundreds of! In high anticpation we pointed at what we wanted and the woman working there babbled away at us in Mandarin, obviously trying to tell us something but we had no idea what she was saying, she carried on speaking though despite this! Anyway Dico's was a big disappointment but we ate what we got and headed off to the shops which were really posh and we couldn't afford anything so we went back to the hostel. That night we met a couple Bruce and Jody from New Zeland and US. We sat on the roof top talking and enjoying
scary sign for toilet
??is this encouarging men to peer over at women whilst they wee?? the lights all over the city (China really is making a huge contribution towards global warming!) Then we headed off to bed early as we all had the same bus to catch in the morning to Vietnam.
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