I'm a Legal Alien, I'm a Manxman in China !!!

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Day 8 (Thurs 13^thSept)



Today is the day I have left Hong Kong and headed north into mainland China. I woke up early as I had to be out of my room by 11am and be all packed up and ready to go. Around 12 o’clock I fetched my bag from the hostel and headed to the MTR, which I was to get from Causeway Bay all the way to Lo Wu, which is the last stop before the border into China. This took around an hour or so and at the other end greeted by customs. Once through customs you’re in Luo Ho, Shenzhen.



I stopped for a bit of lunch in the metro station on the Chinese side of the border for my first attempt at duck while I’ve been here. Ordered and sat waiting, then the waitress brought over what can only be described as a grey watery soup, it looked horrible. As I wondered whether I’d pointed to the right picture card on the menu or not, I thought about asking. Decided to give it a minute and my meal came, much to my relief as it didn’t look appetizing at all, I still have no idea what it was. Roasted Duck, rice and a drink came to around 3 quid, which is stupidly cheap, but that works for me.



I headed off for the metro to go to Shenzhen airport, which I’m flying from because it’s cheaper than Hong Kong international and considering it’s a lot further away cost me less on MTR to get too. Also popped the Chinese toilet cherry, not through choice though, pure necessity. Legs hurt for a bit after it and I don’t think it’s something I want to get used too but maybe I’ll have to in the coming weeks. Got the metro out to the airport which took around an hour and 29 stops in total. Way too early to check in, so I’m currently sat on the floor having just watched Men in Black 3. Still got a couple hours before my flight to Guilin but I thought it was better to make sure I got here in time than get stuck in customs, as I know I can look dodgy sometimes.



Sat waiting for the plane in the middle of the worst thunder showers I’ve ever seen. Now we’ve had a bad summer back home but this was something else, the thunder was that loud, I had to stop watching the movie and just listen to it, unbelievable Jeff!!



Flight went as planned, got the shuttle bus into town by about midnight and had directions from the centre to the hostel, sounds simple but didn’t quite go that way. The shuttle bus driver didn’t speak any English and me and a Swedish girl had no idea where to get off the bus, so when everybody else did so did we. Surrounded by taxi drivers we tried to explain where we we’re both going, not too much success until one of the drivers put me on the phone to I assume a friend of his who did speak English. We both worked out where I wanted to go and got to hostel 10 mins later or so. Checked in and straight to bed.



Day 9 (Fri 14^th Sept)



Woke up pretty early around half 8 which wasn’t the plan. Had a lounge around in the communal bar/lounge area for a bit whilst I had breakfast, played a bit of pool then headed out for a first look round Guilin. I was to be met by the busiest most confusing and scary traffic junction I have ever encountered. Cars, scooters, bicycles, coaches all going all over the chippy in no apparent order. I had to take a few pictures off it as it was unreal. I’ve seen busy spot before be it London, Amsterdam or Athens that come to mind but this was stupid, and it is like that at every junction all over Guilin. My ipod will definitely be getting a rest whilst I’m here as there’s no chance I’m risking listening to music with vehicles everywhere including pavements and zebra crossings.



Spent a good 3 hours just aimlessly walking around trying to get my bearings which I’d say are pretty sorted, although I can imagine it would be very easy to get lost. Headed back to the hostel for an afternoon snooze, which really should have been a lie in earlier.



The evening came and I went to the communal area to play some pool with Jeroen from the Netherlands, while we waited for the hostels Friday night bbq to start which was brilliant. Whilst drinking a few Tsingtao, we were treated to beef, chicken, pork, lamb, dumplings, seaweed and barbecued with the meat being on skewers. The food was dished out for something like 3 hours and we just continued to eat, whilst sat with a lovely Canadian couple from Toronto in Leonard and Kim. These were the first 2 I’ve spoken too who’ve actually heard of the isle of man which was great. The night flew by and before I knew it, it was 12pm, Leonard and Kim went to bed and me and Jeroen went back inside to the bar, it actually felt a bit cold, strangely. An American lad joined us in the bar and we got chatting, then it turned out his best friends cousin married a manxie, it also transpired that we shared the same room in Hong Kong but due to the rooms having 21 people didn’t happen to meet. The beers kept flowing and before I knew it 3am had arrived and I was the only one sat in the bar, time for bed, but a brilliant evening had by all who attended.



Day 10 (Sat 15^th Sept)



Woke up at lunchtime with a small hangover but nothing 2 ibuprofen couldn’t sort out. I had planned on a few local parks today but due to waking so late decided that’s for another day. I decided on the Reed Flute Caves which I’d seen on trip advisor, some giving it a good rating and others not so but figured I’d go anyways. Got 2 local buses to get out there, all costing 1 Yuan which is 10 pence, set fare for any journey, amazing value. After getting there which took an age and went down some sketchy back roads, I was met with various giant rock formations coming out of the ground. I found the entrance and somehow got a private tour with 2 American’s, which was handy indeed and cost me nothing extra. They also dropped me at my hostel on the way back which was very nice of them. The caves themselves are pretty cool. There are stalagmites and stalactites inside the caves and the tour lasted around 45 minutes to an hour. All the bits of interest have been lit up in various colours to stand out more than the rest. This was nice but in some areas did look a little tacky. There’s also a lot of building work going on there so I can see the place becoming even less impressive over time. There were a couple underground lakes as well which for me made the place worth going too.



Day 11 (Sun 16^th Sept)



Today was the River Li cruise day that was the main reason of coming to Guilin. We got picked up 10am from the hostel, driven about an hour downstream to the pier where we met the plastic bamboo boats. These are not the original bamboo boats but consisted of 8 plastic tubes with a bit of decking on top. This was to be our vessel for the next 2 hours as we went south towards Yangshuo on the River Li. First spot of the morning was a couple of water buffalo swimming alongside our boats. There is limestone karsts straddling either side of the river made the setting an incredible one. You’d think after 5 or 10 minutes you’d get bored or he magic would pass but around each corner more incredible limestone hills, each one more impressive and captivating than the last. 4 people to a raft it was and I was with Austrian Daniel and a Dutch couple, who I’ve forgotten the names off. All very nice people and a lovely way to spend 2 hours. After an hour or so, there was a picture break and we headed back upstream. Had one collision but I think the driver did this on purpose, although on the way downstream he did nod off a few times, once we started a big drift turn left one of us coughed or spoke up to wake him up again, not that if we crashed there would be much damage, they weren’t the quickest vehicles ever.



I took the option of taking the afternoon tour also to YuLong He. Here we had a go on even smaller proper bamboo rafts, properly moved by a Chinese man and a big stick. We were taken up a stream to visit some water buffalo, this was after a cormorant show, in which the fisherman sends the cormorant birds into the water to catch fish. This was class, loved watching the birds catch the fish, they made it seem so easy. I’ve seen fishing back home and this made loads more sense, get someone else or something else to do the work. They then bring the fish back to the bamboo raft and the fisherman throws them in a big bucket, after getting the fish out of the cormorant’s throat. I believe they have some sort of string strangling them to a degree to stop them swallowing the fish. The water buffalo slightly further upstream were good. There was 5 or 6 sort of waiting with farmers for us to have a good look at. For a few Yuan you could sit on one but I left that for the smaller persons in the group. These rafts are 2 persons only, so got chatting to an American, Rich. We had a great laugh after we found the water pistols under the chairs, had a little play only to be shot at by a little Chinese girl. Hence a bit of retaliation, a Brit and American aren’t going to accept that. We loaded up and soaked the little girls parents as they floated the other way. We had a few more incidents of shooting other vessels as well as locals on the side. No one seemed too bothered to get wet, dry out pretty quick, but it was good fun. This lasted best part of 2 hours. Got back to dry land and headed for the coach back to Guilin. The trip back eventful enough, the roads are poor, driving is mental and anybody and everybody is on the one highway, including a man and his 6 water buffalo going straight up the middle of the road. Saw a sign for traffic police which made me laugh as that’s blatantly not what goes on here, Police just watch the mayhem go by. I may also be mistaken but I’m sure I saw a man with an animal in a bag on side of road obviously trying to sell it, but to me it looked like a baby panda, hopefully my eyes played tricks on me because that would be very cruel indeed. It was black and white though and blatantly not small, but not an adult either. Finished the night sat in communal bar area, couple of Tsingtao and bed, another good day done.



Coming Up. Guilin’s parks, sun and moon pagoda’s and Xi’an from Wednesday

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Comments

[Noel]

Thanks for all the information ,really enjoyed reading it.You are having a wonderful experience.Spoke to your Nana yesterday....not too sure if she is really enjoyi