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Published: September 8th 2011
Up at 5.45am (aagghh!!!) breakfast and on the road in the minibus by 7.00am. Arrived in Wu Han (a small city of 10 million people!!) for lunch, before boarding the train at 3.00pm for our overnight journey to Guilin. An uneventful journey, although seemed longer than the others (novelty factor now worn off!!) and we arrived in Guilin at about 05.45am. Transferred straight onto the local public bus which left at 6.00am and arrived at Yangshou (Li River Hotel) at about 7.30am knackered!!!
Of course the rooms were not going to be ready for a few hours so we dumped our stuff and headed off with Millie and the group to a local western cafe for a full English breakfast! Excellent! And it had free wifi as well so managed to upload some blog although internet connection not good enough for pics. Will try again tomorrow!! Had a walk around the pretty, touristy town before heading up one of the hillocks to a temple at the top to get some good views over the town!
Back to the hotel for shower before having a wander round the shops – lazy day! Wandered down to the river but got shooed away as
they were expecting some Chinese Celebrity so met up with the group and had a Millie dinner before the River trip for the Cormorant Fishing demonstration. Because they do it at night I wasn’t really able to get any good pics and it was a bit touristy but generally an enjoyable hour on the river!
The next day was MY BIRTHDAY!!! Had a lovely birthday card and some earings from L+R and R +L. Chris had sneaked them in his suitcase so was a lovely surprise! He had also bought a picture of us, taken by the photographer, going over the bridge at Fengdu and a card so was all very special!
Anyway, we met the group at 9.00am as we were all going for a cycle ride in the countryside. We had decided to get a tandem (seeing as we had a lot of practise on the Wall at Xi’an!!) and we set off, along the main road, but turning off into the quieter country roads and tracks, passing the old farm dwellings and watching the people farm the land, past a lotus farm, some women doing their washing in a stream, a couple of water buffalo, before arriving
at our lunch stop – Moon Hill. After lunch we cycled on the main road, arriving back in Yangshuo at about 1.30pm.
Wandered the shops again, contemplated a boat ride, but ended up having a beer (or two!!) trying to upload pics onto the blog! Very slow process and not yet completed!! Back to room for shower and for Chris to have a crash out! Those beers were pretty strong!
Had a meal and then met up for a final drink with the group (Dressed all in ‘I Love China’ T shirts!!) at 09.30pm. Went to a local bar and then was totally embarrassed when our Norwegian friend bought me a drink and a tiara and the whole group sang ‘Happy Birthday’!! And I thought I had kept it pretty quiet!! Anyway, we had a good evening with cocktails and beer and got back to hotel about 11.30pm! A late night!! And up at 8.00am tomorrow for a cookery lesson!!
The next morning, after checkout, we met our cookery teacher, joined another group of people and went to the local market to buy the ingredients! Mmmm....BIG learning curve! Snakes, frogs, snails all in buckets.....as well as all the vegetables and
herbs.....but we were not really prepared for the meat section! Ducks, chickens, rabbits, dogs and cats............alive and dead.......Quite difficult to stay for very long.
Anyway, we then all trouped back to the Cloud 9 restaurant where we all had a drink before donning our chefs hat and apron and going upstairs to the kitchen! We all had a workstation, with the ingredients underneath the table and we were going to cook Sweet and Sour Pork, Chicken with peanuts, Li River Beer fish and vegetable dumplings! Amazing experience and learnt a lot about how the Chinese cook and after we had cooked the dishes we went downstairs and ate them with a bowl of rice! Very delicious and a well recommended experience for 100 CNY each!
We had a free afternoon to do last minute shopping etc before getting the 5.00pm bus to the train station for the 9.00pm train to Hong Kong.
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Laura
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Queen Jackie!
Glad you like the earrings mum! Sorry we didn't think to buy you the matching tiara - a new look for you??!! Sounds like you had a great birthday xxx