Hello is no longer a friendly greeting.

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Did you know that although Hong Kong is technically a part of China now that the British gave the territory back, they still have their own money, rules, even language,and you have to get your passport stamped when traveling between the two?!

We weren't so aware of the separation and when we left the train station in HK for mainland China we expected to arrive in a similar type station with money changers, food stalls, McDonald's, ect. but boy were we wrong. We got off the train in Guangzhou and were ushered through customs. We were trying to make a train that left within the half hour, but found out from a guy who worked for CTS (China Travel Service) that the train left from the other station and we wouldn't be able to make it. The very same guy then proceeded to rip us off the worst we have ever been ripped off. He told us that he would get us the next train to Guilin, an overnight train, and give us a ride to the airport for 450 yuan each, which was about $60 US plus a 50 yuan service charge. In the taxi we read in our trusty Lonely Planet that it should only cost about 230 each for the train, when in his office we questioned him about it and he lowered the price to 400 each total, being that we had no idea how we were going to buy the tickets or how to get back to the train station we agreed. Not realizing that the actual train tickets we'd bought were only 200 yuan each and we'd just paid double the price, we were dropped off at the station with our tickets. This train station had a mass crowd of people out front all trying to get in. It was crazy pandemonium. Aaron and I were then glad that we didn't have to worry about buying our tickets. There were just tons of people everywhere. Since our train didn't leave for a couple hours we decided to hide out in the KFC, only our second time at a fast food place. (the first was a Subway in New Zealand) We had some trouble ordering, but the point and nod method did alright and we spent the next 2 hours being stared at in the KFC. When we felt it was time to brave the crowds and try to get into the station, it turned out to be somewhat less crazy. There are no forming of lines, people just go right to the front and squeeze in. Once inside we found no english on the directory and so didn't know which waiting area we were supposed to go to until the nicest Chinese person we met came over to us to help. He was a police man who wanted to practice his english with us and just help us get onto our train alright. He stayed talking to us for at least 20 minutes, attracting a small crowd, until we got onto the train.

We had what was called a 'hard sleeper' which is 6 beds in one little cubicle, we both had the middle bed and so couldn't sit upright all the way. Luckily we didn't have too hard of a time sleeping and we slept almost the whole way to Guilin.

In Guilin we bought tickets a few days in advance for our next train ride to Xi'an and then got a bus to Yangshuo, a nearby town only an hours bus ride from Guilin. Here was another instance that we got screwed. We had to walk to the ATM to get cash for the train tickets and this guy started following us asking us where we were going. We just told him the ATM and he kept trying to show us pictures of nearby hotels and telling us we should go to the CITS (China International Travel Service) office that we had just been in. The guy followed us all the way to the ATM and back to the train station, but disappeared when we went into the travel office. When we came out he climbed onto the bus with us and charged us double the price for the bus ride, 20 each instead of 10. Thats less than $2 US but he still totally ripped us off. By the time we got to Yangshuo, 2 guys had sat down next to us, chatted nicely with us, and then offered us 'cheap hotel room'. When we finally found our desired hostel we were beat, everyone was doing their best at screwing us! Even along the street the people would say 'Hello, hello' and try to sell us something.

Our hostel was nice though and we got a good lunch there before we headed out to see Silver Cave. We were able to get a cheap tour cause it was all in Chinese, but the cave itself was spectacular. All lit up with different colors, and since we couldn't understand the guide anyways we just lagged behind the group to take more pictures. We finished the tour around 5 and used the internet at a not heated cafe where everyone smoked and it was so cold we could barely type. Our room was also poorly heated and we had to keep our jackets on indoors.

The next day we had scheduled a boat ride with a bicycle rental which turned out to be great. The boat ride was along the Yi river and had great scenery the whole way. Although it was freezing and every 10 minutes someone tried to sell us something, 'hello, beer?' 'hello, photo?' and countless other items that we didn't want, we still had a good time. From the end of the boat ride we rode our rental bikes up the road to see the Big Banyan Tree, an ancient (and not that interesting) tree and then up to Moon Hill, a cool rock formation you can hike up to. When we got there, again we were accosted with 'hello' from ladies selling drinks. One lady even followed us up the hill and would have come all the way to the top, over 1,000 steps, if Aaron hadn':t told her 'you stay, and we go', pointing up the hill. The view from the top was great though.

We rode back to town and got some dinner at a place advertising burritos as their speciality. The restaurant wasn't really heated either and we were tempted to eat with our gloves on, but we had been craving some mexican food and thought it could be good. The burrito was great, but the nachos were somewhat mediocre due to the fact that the cheese wasn't even melted on, it came on the side?!

The next day we had to head back to Guilin to catch our train to Xi'an. By this time we started to get seriously disgusted with the spitting. Not just any regular spitting out of saliva, I'm talking about loud, throat clearing, hawking of phlem from the depths of your lungs (which you had to dodge with every step along the street). We had been hearing this foul sound about every 2 minutes from all types of people, men, women, rich, poor, everytime we were outside. I decided to start counting, just to see how many I would get in a day. For the 5 minute walk from our hostel to the bus stop we must have counted 4, and then just being on the bus (which we insisted on paying just 10 yuan and got it) the driver spit like another 5 or so times out the window, and by the time we got onto our train in early afternoon it was at least up to 20.

When we went to pick up our train tickets from the CITS office they said to just wait 10 minutes and in that 10 minutes we must have gotten 100 "hello's" people asking where we were going, if we need a hotel, if we were going to Yangshuo, it got to be funny how many people said Hello. We started saying Good bye, or just no, or just trying to ignore them all together. We got our tickets after arguing over the service fee that of course wasn't mentioned when we were originally in the office, and proceeded to the plush soft sleeper waiting room. There we really felt (and were) bourgeoisie, with basically an entire building to ourselves with a huge pond an fountain in the center. We played hakey sack til it was time to board our train.

Our train ride to Xi'an was meant to be a short 27 hours, but right when we boarded the train a nice english speaking ticket checker came over to us and told us that it would certainly be at least 3 hours late, as usual. At least she told us. This meant that we would arrive at midnight instead of 9pm, not great for having no reservation. Of course the english speaking ticket checker offered us a room at a friend of her's hotel, as every one who spoke to us had someplace for us to stay. Although the ride was long, it wasn't bad. We were smart and got a soft sleeper, only 4 beds in a room and our roommates were nice Chinese people who even offered us some of their foods. (including a hotdog looking thing that had corn kernels inside and some packaged fungi coming from a river I think?) We arrived right at midnight as we'd been warned (turned down the offer of a place to stay) and walked safely to our Lonely Planet recommended hotel.


PS Just to let you know that I am currently in Delhi, just got here yesterday from Japan, I think I'm going to love India. Sorry I havn't been keeping up with this, surprisingly in China we couldn't log in to Travelblog, and in Japan we were just too busy to really sit down and blog.

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Photos

Silver cave
Sweetest cave ever!

Refelections in a cave
Notice the awesome refelection in the water, beautiful!

Our bamboo boat driver
I dont think he had all his teeth.

River views
The landscape sure was picturesque even if we were freezing our butts off.

Moon Hill
View from the bottom.

Moon Hill
View from the top.

Aaron, still cold
Our room's 'heating' was drastically inadaquite.

Comments

[Miran]

wow
that cave is so beautiful!!!!!!!!!