Stairs!

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Guilin

We arrived.... finally 13 hours later at 6 in the morning on a surprisingly smooth train, only to find that we could not find a taxi driver who spoke english and the chinese name of our hostel was not written on any of the papers we had with us. Eventually we found one who acted like she understood only to have her drive us round to a chinese travel agency who couldn't speak enlish either, after around 20 minutes we did manage to make it to the hostel by getting a receptionist at a posh hotel to translate for us.
The hostel was lovely with the rooms in the dorm only slightly smaller than a double, understandably we wern't up for to much that day and explored the town, ending up in an 'irish' pub which most definately was not irish, the givaway being the english and French flags on the wall.
Guilin itself is just a town and although the night market which i explored later that evening was lovely i was eager to get out of the city the next day so booked a tour to the longji rice terraces a couple of hours north. After breaking down on what stands for a duelcarrageway/motorway a shabby little bus came to our rescue and we all piled in, don't worry we did make it, and arrived at a beautiful location surrounded by mountains with a small village climbimg the mountain which we walked through to reach the top where the spectacular view would take you breath away, if the obsurd amount of stairs had not already accomplished that. On the way up the mountain we stopped for the traditional meal of meat and rice cooked in bamboo, i stuck with chicken just to be on the safe side, and on the way down we scanned the stalls selling a variety of bracelets and scarfs.
After a hair-raising journey down the rest of the mountain where the driver had to beep before every corner just in case there was another minivan comeing round the other side, we made it back to the base, health and saftey would have a field day! Once we had all squeezed back into the shabby coach our guide set of to the long haired village where the girls have hair down to there feet and according to the guide are all a little inbred due to the fact that they have been so shut of from the outside world. There i learnt a whole new meaning to the word hard sell, they would quite literally try to sell you the seat they were sitting on. After watching a little of thier show involving the long haired women doing some unusual dancing and marrying a couple of tourists in a traditional marrige ceremony, me kiwi, the two american girls and the giant german who's name everyone got wrong escaped to have a little look round the village where we were pinched rather a lot, apparently a sign of affection there.
We did attempt to go to the clubs that night but one drink in a club with someone dressed as a nazi and drunk girls falling over the tables and i decided that i was just not right for this place, i mean it was 9o'clock!? Instead we ended up in a pub where we listened to a chinese guy singing something we couldn't understand with a sort of Korean hig school musical in the background, perfect? We did stay well clear of the bar snacks though which consisted of birds feet.
The next day was another early one i was up by 8, would kill for a lie in at the moment, an hour later an we were piling into a little minibus, but evidently the tour guide had overbooked so had to squeeze an extra two people in with no seats, putting the bags where-ever they would physically fit. The next 40 minutes were rather uncomfortable but eventually made it to the bamboo rafts, there we all got on 7 to a raft with bags and all and waited to see if they would sink once the 'captain' pushed of. Remarkably they held and the scenery of hundreds of little mountains and beautiful rock forms made up for the cold, we did all get a little wet and i began to wonder why only one of the rafts, and not the one i was on got life jackets but hey i'm still writing the blog. We pulled up a a little bank two hours later where we were transfered first to a safari like vehicle with no back and then half an hour later a bus which took us to Yangshou.

A tough introduction to mountain biking

We arrived in Yangshou that afternoon, a beautiful place, granted set up for tourists but everyone spoke english which made a nice change. Luckily some of the people we'd been on the boat with happened to be staying in the hostel next to ours and we arranged to meet up an hour later when we proceeded to go for dinner a kellys which does better milkshakes than shakeaway.
We decided to go biking the next day and after orders to meet downstairs at 8.30 the next day to go for breakfast we hit the sack. Inevitably me and kiwi arrived a little late the next day and after a long winded breakfast we hired the bikes and left, little did i realise at that point what the day was going to turn into.
I am not the sporty type, but somehow was convinced that 40-45km (completly guessed i might add) mountain bike ride was a good idea, we toyed with the idea of geting motorbikes but decided the exercise was a good idea. So we headed out following a map in the hands of a korean ex army officer who is over here learning manderin and just on his holidays. I think we lost the bike trail fairly quickly as a couple of hours in we were riding along paths dividing sunken farmers fields just wider than my foot, having only learnt to ride a bike properly a couple of years ago this was ridiculus and i have never wished for a helmet so much in my life. Kiwi fell into a thorn bush, the korean action man jin su fell of a small cliff, he's fine, and we were constantly riding on small ledges with no sides over rivers and such, the small patches of proper road or even the gravelled stuff was bliss. At one point we went through a village where the kids threw firecrackers at us and at another point some village people tried to con us by telling us there was no path and that we'd need to get a raft over the river which the just convieniently happened to own a few of. Jin su was a life saver as he looks chinese and is almost fluent so in most cases he was able to get us directions. Around 5 and a half hours later we made it to the base of moon hill, feeling pretty proud of ourselfs if a little bruised, now was just the small matter of 800 steps to get to the top, i found this even harder than the bike ride itself and was dying by the time we reached the top. We got to the top only to be told by the little old lady selling drinks to just go past the don't go any-further point, i had already heard this so followed the two guys up whilst kiwi and sam waited with the little old lady. The view from the top was incredible sitting on a rock level with hundreds of other little mountains shrowded in mist with the towns and villages far below, really really far.
Eventually after cycling the fast, straight way back just over a half hour cycle as we'd gone up and round to see a bridge first, we reached yangshou where we sat down for dinner before heading back to the hostels to dye. Jin su, action-man, asked if any of us fancyed rock climbing the next day and he got 4 rapid no's! He went anyway crazy man?!
The next day we didn't do a lot unsurprisingly both us and the couple we met who are teaching here were in pain, we did a little shopping and decided to go to the light show which jin su had seen the night before (after the 8 hour bike/trek) and said it almost made him cry. We picked a good night to see the show and he was right it was absolutely brilliant, couldn't understand much of it but it was amazing, with most of the dance routines done on the water, some by fishermen balencing on bamboo rafts with ease. I would try to explain the production but don't really know how to, it used hundreds and hundreds of local people and used torches lights ribbons in the river......
So we have an 18 hour train booked to kunmimg tomorrow at 5 not particularly looking forward to it i have to admit as we're on top bunks this time, oh well 😊 x

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Photos

Longji rice terraces
beautiful just don't think about the trip back down

The hard sell
One of the americans we met in guilin, she amused the locals greatly by buying the small stool she's sitting on.

Sink or sail
The bamboo raft in the few nerve racking moments where we were unsure if the engine could cope with pushing us along

Mini Mountains
The Beautiful scenery that surrounded us on our trip down the river.

The boat lot
Including army guy and the two english teachers sam and chris at our new favourite restaurant.

road block
Just over half way through the bike ride and the going got even tougher

Really?
We stopped at this sort of shop in a very small village once out of reach of the kids with fire-crackers.

Beyond even action-mans capabilities
There were some bits where even they had to walk

Don't get this in the towns
The views made it all worth while, at least when i wasn't too busy concentrating on not falling off

Moon Hill
The top or almost, i was busy climbing to the top past the no entry sign whilst this was taken :)

I got to the top of that!
The very top :)

chill out
After a very long day

Light Show
Pictures didn't really do the show justice but all of the little guys are balancing on tiny bamboo rafts pulling that red ribbon out of the water timed with the music.

The love story bit
These were some of the floats brought out onto the lake for part of it

Finali
Although you can't see in the pictures they lit up the mountains as a back drop, for this section all the lights went of and there where hundreds of women all dancing in time on some sort of platform, all you could see were the lights embedded on their clothing.

Rooftop Bar
Cocktails 1.50 pounds, free pool, music and free barbeque chicken as well as a view of the river what more could you ask for?

Comments

[Lsura]

And I thought Brockenhurst was bad :p