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Published: June 26th 2011
Unrelated
I just think this picture is really hilarious.Here is the recollection of my fantastic adventures in Yangshuo. Hope you like it.
Day 19
Waking up early. Too early for my phone/alarm apparently as it failed to make any attemp to wake me. So I was woken up by my guide calling me on the hotelphone and asking where I was all the while I looked at the clock and realised that I had 5 minutes to pack all my belongings, brush my teeth and forget everything about breakfast, a truly happy and calm morning for me. But fortunately I momentarily became the master of time and space and made it down, only 2 minutes late. We headed out and managed to keep to the schedule of reaching the riverarea of the town, where a large boat was waiting for me and othe passengers.
This boat was to take us down the Li River and set us of at town of Yangshuo. The weather was a bit grey, but there was no rain present as the boat left the docks and headed towards the village. The river was very high today on account of the massive rainfall the day and night before, so as we went along we
Under water
I don't think it supposed to rise that high. saw a lot of trees and bushes more or less under water. There were some amazing hills and mountains in the area, some covered in fog and all of them lighted in grey, which gave them an amazing look and created a tranquil atmosphere. At one point it started raining heavily again, but I took refuge inside as I was on the very top of the boat in a small house together with a group of friendly old French men and women. We had a meal consisting of various delicacies of the region, which I gladly ate, seeing as I had had no previous things to eat.
We sailed past the famous Nine Horses Mountain in which you can, with some large portions of imagination, see the shapes of nine horses (go figure). Legend has it that the more horses you can see, the more wise you are, so I of course could see no less than 20 horses. We continued upriver for some time, enjoying the wonderful view, before docking a small bit outside of Yangshuo. Here the guide and I walked to my hotel and I got aqauinted with the room.
Some time later I met with Kitty
Cookin'
Regular ship kitchen (the guide) and we rented some bikes and went for a fun and adventurous ride. We did not come very far as the rain suddenly came back with full strenght, but we found refuge by a bar along the road and waited out the rain. Thereafter we continued into the farmland of the area which gave me a chance to meet with the locals, which proved to be a great succes especially because they seemed to think that Kitty was not Chinese because she was with me which pissed her of immensly, much to my amusement. After biking for some hours we returned to the hotel and said our goodbyes, I would be alone now until the day of my departure to Xi’an. I went down in to town and went through the shoppingstreet, a place I would spend most of my time here, since all the bars and eatingplaces where located here. I walked around for some time before returning home and sleeping a bit.
I later returned en force and promptly met some guys walking down the street, with one of them turning out to be a Dane and the other an Englishman who both had been out
Nice
Just nice really travelling for some months! The Englishman attempted to cross the whole world without the use of a plane and was near succeding, he even crossed the Atlantic in a small sailingboat with some other Englishmen, even though he had never sailed before. We went to have some beers at a rooftop bar, with a spectacular view of the whole village and surrounding mountains. Here we met a German teacher and one of his Chinese teacher friends, whom we followed to another bar. Here we had great fun which only increased when we met a group of some young Swedes and Norwegians whom we talked with for a while. Hereafter only the other Dane, Tobias, the German, Rudy, the Chinese, Edward and I went on to a bar nearby.
We had a great time as we met even more people and I even met a Dane more here whom was out celebrating a Chinese girls birthday. The two Chinese girls were waitresses and they were all really friendly, so we had a great time. By the time we finished it was morning and only Tobias, Julie (the danish girl), Alice, Julia and I remained. The night stopped with us having a
Foggy trees
Kinda reminds me of The Last Samurai foodfight involving both cake and fruit and we thereafter went out separate ways.
I was very happy when I finally came home and promptly fell asleep.
Day 20
Woke up late this day with fortunately and quite surprisingly no hangovers. Already sensing that nothing was going to be done or accomplished today, I went down to West Street (the shoppingstreet) to get some brunch and to contemplate on what to do next. I decided to take a day of and just stroll through the village for some hours. I went home and slept a while (this is becoming a recurring event) before heading out to West Street once again.
As I walked down one of the small streets, I met Rudy and another Chinese teacher, Eddington, and we went to have something to eat. By chance it was the bar where the Chinese girls Alice and Julia from yesterday worked so this was a moment of much joy and laughing. We had some food and beers and some great matches on the bars fussball table, that had 13 players on each team with three goalies, much to our amusement. We stayed at the bar the whole night and even
Rain
We had a lot of it. met more Danes (where have they been hiding?!) whom we had some more beers with.
The night ended much later than I had previously planned, but fun nonetheless as I beat Rudy 5 consecutive times at fussball.
Day 21
This day started late too, with again no hangovers. Tobias had suggested that this is because of the heat and atmosphere or something like that, but I really did not care about all that much. I had planned with Rudy and Eddington to go swimming with some of their friends, so we had decided to meet up. I went and rented a mountainbike for the enourmous sum of 20 Yuan, before heading in to West Street for some brunch. As I ate, it started to rain viciously and I met Rudy who told me that the swimming was cancelled. Now I had a bike but no idea of where to go, but I wanted to go swimming anyway. So I asked a girl I met at the restaurant to give me directions and off I went.
It went really smooth until I got out of town and got lost in the small villages and the farming areas in the hills.
Just chillin'
Nothing else to do At one point I was out on a small road(one-person wide small) consistiing of mud and clay, which my bike got bogged so much down in that the wheels could not turn or move even an inch! After clearing away some of the muddy clay I went back to one of the villages and by luck met an Englishman who lived there with his Chinese wife. They gave me correct directions and I finally found it after a while of searching.
Here I met another Englishman, Chris, and his possé of Chinese friends that were a great deal of fun. We relaxed by the river for some time, before I went a cleaned my bike, and by this I mean that I picked it up and threw it in the river. This however was not enough to get the damn clay off and I had to take a small stick and clean every nick and corner of it by scraping with this small stick. It took forever and by the time it was done I was more dirty than before I had the swim (which was a lot).
I went home and returned the still very dirty bike and had
Crimeriders
I am one, be very afraid a nice long-wanted shower. I went to town again and ate at the usual bar before going to one of the other rooftop bars. Here I met some Chinese guys and girls that I had great fun with and we played some rounds of dart and fussball before going to the one of the other bars to hear some live rock & roll music. It was great fun and I even met some of my other friends, before I ended the night “early” on the grounds that I was immensly tired and that I had to catch a flight the next day.
A wonderfully cool and fluffy bed awaited me at home and I easily fell asleep after packing all my stuff.
Day 22
This day day started out very early as I had to catch my flight to Xi’an. The drive to the airport was about 2 hours long, so we had to make sure to get there in time. I made it with time to spare which was nice, before the plane departed towards Xi’an. Here I arrived and was picked up by my newest guide. He dropped me off at the hotel and we parted until
Countryside
Really nice the next day.
I went to my room and got up to speed on my mails and the like, before sleeping soundly for some hours. It was late when I went out, but everything was more or less open, so I headed towards the Muslim Quarter. After some time of searching, as I got a bit lost, I finally found it and proceeded to walk around here for some time. If I thought that the people in Yangshuo spoke bad english, then I was in for a surprise for compared to the people here, the ones from Yangshuo seemed like Oxford educated english teachers.
But I managed to get something to eat by using handgestures and pointing, which turned out fine. I returned home afterwards for some more sleep.
A truly exciting first day in Xi’an.
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