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Published: October 20th 2008
Yanshou
Great sceneryThe Chinese Countryside
After a mammoth 22 hour train journey (which stupidly involved more drinking) we arrived at the holiday resort of Yangshou, with its marked-clad streets packed tightly between massive pointed skyscrapers of rock like a large upside-down egg carton. The town was absolutely heaving with Chinese tourists (we'd managed to time our trip to visit one of China's most popular tourist destinations with the Chinese national week holiday...) but that didn't stop us making the most of our two nights in the med-meets-oriental resort.
On our first morning we left Fawlty Towers (true to its name we had a broken bathroom light and flooding toilet, which we eventually completely broke) for a cruise down the nearby river that ran through the fore-mentioned giant hills that dotted the whole area. After a bit of a ruckus that nearly ended in a few Chinese boat owners meeting a watery end, we finally chugged along up the river, occasionaly being soaked by Chinese children with water pistols and stopping for some fried fish before turning back.
That night we celebrated Alisha's (one of the girls from our group) birthday with some great Western food (after weeks of rice and noodles
Main Street
The markets at night were heaving it was nice to have steak and chips!) and some drinks (I can see a theme running here) on one of the rooftop bars that overlooked the eerily lit surroundings. Paul and Alisha decided to try some of the local delicacies, namely a shot of snake oil which needless to say went down rather harshly ('it tasted of death"). The following morning we gorggily arose for Kung-Fu with our instructor Master Yang, where Paul obviously kicked arse and then headed off to start our cooking class.
"My bike has no gears!"
We started our cooking class by visiting a local market to view the fresh produce before heading off to the picturesque village of Chowlong. After somehow preparing 3 edible meals in our class we sat down in the outside dining area overlooking the serene Chinese countryside and gobbled up all of the food we had prepared and retired to our rustic guesthouse.
Our penultimate day we spent doing the organised bike ride with the group which gave us the opportunity to witness some of the wonderful scenery and beautiful sights of Chowlong and the surrounding areas, which was a breath of fresh air after spending the
Team Norway
Gangster-ish previous few weeks in the smog-filled Chinese cities. Unfortunately for Suze some parts of the path were pretty steep and she had managed to pick out an ancient pushbike that had no gears, making parts of the trip more awkward than we imagined.
That afternoon we spent relaxing at the guesthouse where Paul managed to find the time to play table tennis, get beaten at pool by two American children and enter a lego house building competition (which was rigged in my opinion) and the attention to detail involved was frightening...
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Mum Murray
non-member comment
How beautiful
Wow the scenery in China is stunning. It made me think of a film I saw a while back whose name escapes me but it was set in China obviously amongst those pointed mountains. I'm loving the cooking photos especially and to see Paul with a fish in front of his face. Who would have believed it!! Looks like you met a great bunch of people too which adds to the fun. Oh well enjoy the rest of your time in Vietnam. Cant wait to see the fancy dress pics!! Until the next time, take care. Keep the pics coming. Lots of Love Mum xx