Advertisement
Published: August 8th 2007
I was a little apprehensive about leaving the Philippines for China, and more than a little sad to be leaving after the amazing and fascinating time I had had on the island. But the time had come to move on, and I was so excited at the prospect of meeting up with Antony, the first person from home that I was going to see since leaving the UK 7 months previously. Just before I left my hostel in Manila, I checked my email to discover a message from Antony, saying that he was stuck in Paris and would not be arriving in Hong Kong until the next day. This was a huge disappointment for me in a couple of ways: the first being that I was so looking forward to seeing him that the thought of waiting a few more hours seemed like a whole lifetime to me; and we were due to be staying with Richard, an old friend of Ant's that he had made all the arrangements with. I had no idea how to get in touch with him other than via email, and luckily I was able to catch him online before I left for the airport and
made a very vague arrangement to meet him when I arrived in Hong Kong.
After landing in Hong Kong, I took the airport express train to the city and thankfully, Richard was there waiting for me when I arrived at Central Station. After laughing at the sight of me weighed down with my bags, he handed me a beer (ahhhh, bliss) and we boarded a boat to Lamma Island, home to many expats (including Richard). The evening was drawing in by this point and I was pretty tired after my flight, so instead of exploring we walked up the rather steep but mercifully short hill to Richard's flat and after eating the contents of Richard's fridge, drinking another beer and having a chat, I crashed out on the sofa. It was my first night sleeping in a non-airconditioned room in a while, and although the temperature was much cooler than it had been in Manila, I found it so hot and had a rather restless night's sleep.
While in the shower the next morning, I heard a familiar voice - Ant had arrived! He had had a great flight over from Paris, having been upgraded to Business class,
which had gone some way to cushioning the blow of being a day late. After catching up with the news from home for a little while, he produced some things from home that I had asked him to bring for me, along with some other smellies that he had liberated from his hotel the night before. But the only thing I was really interested in was Marmite. Ah, Marmite, how I love thee! We went out for breakfast that morning, and I have to say that after consuming a huge full English breakfast (including Marmite on toast) I was in food heaven. The small things really do matter when you've been travelling for a while.
That afternoon, Ant and I ventured into the city to apply for our next-day Chinese visas, and while we were there we decided to have a look in some of the numerous camera shops on Nathan Road, just to compare some prices. Ever since I took the photography course in Queenstown I have been pining after an SLR camera, so I thought if I could find one for the right price I might be tempted to buy one. Having obtained a couple of prices,
we realised that no shop quoted the same (we were quoted a ridiculously huge range of prices). One such shop offered a very good deal for a Canon EOS400 camera, two lenses, memory card, battery and case, and after umming and aahing for a few minutes I decided I would buy it. After taking my credit card details, the assistant disappeared out the back of the shop to get my purchases. All the while he was away, his colleague proceeded to try to make me buy a different lense that did the job of the two that I had bought, but for much more money than even the actual camera had been. Obviously trained not to take 'no' for an answer, he continued to give me the hard sell until, after what seemed like about 20 minutes, I was beginning to get rather anxious about the camera and equipment that I had actually bought, as the shop assistant still hadn't reappeared. I asked someone to go and check what was taking him so long, and a couple of minutes later he returned and told me that I couldn't have what I had bought, as they didn't have any in stock
and suggested that I return the next day. Bemused and very concerned that I had been scammed in some way, I told them that it was unacceptable (probably sounding very pathetically English) and demanded that the transaction be cancelled. They tore up the slip and gave it to me and we left the shop empty handed and extremely worried that while he was out the back the assistant might have written down my card details. I became convinced that my card had been defrauded, so after walking around for what seemed like an eternity trying to find a public phone that worked, I contacted my bank and asked them to check for any recent purchses. Thankfully, there were none and Ant and I concluded that the shop's scam had simply been to try and make me upgrade my purchase and spend more money. I found this rather baffling: I had bought nothing and went away empty-handed and therefore they had made no money at all out of me. But I couldn't help but feel like I had maybe had a lucky escape . . .
Upon returning to Richard's flat and telling him what had happened, his reply was
simply 'Well, of course that happened. Everyone knows not to shop on Nathan Road.' Everyone except us, apparently.
The three of us had made plans to leave Hong Kong the next day and to go and stay with a friend of Richard's in the country. It was approaching the day of the Qingming festival in China (the occasion when people 'sweep the grave' of their deceased, which comprises worshipping the ancestors, making offerings, and sweeping away the year's accumulated weeds and rubbish), and Richard's friend and his wife (American and Chinese, respectively) were looking forward to welcoming us into their home for this occasion. As Richard explained, they were even holding off killing the dog so that they could do it in our honour when we were there. Nice. Feeling somewhat nauseous at this prospect, we still thought it would be an interesting side-trip for a few days.
The next morning, just before Ant and I were going to leave to collect our visas and the three of us set off into China, Ant jokingly asked Richard if he had a current Chinese visa, never suspecting for a second that he wouldn't. A last-minute check of the passport
confirmed that Richard's visa had indeed expired the previous month, and it was now too late for him to obtain another one. Goodbye, Qingming festival in the countryside. Goodbye, dog slaughter.
Due to the unprecedented last-minute change of plans, Ant and I decided that we would head to Guangshou and, from there, catch a sleeper train to Guilin before taking a boat trip down the Li River to Yangshuo. Ant had been to Yangshuo while travelling in China 24 years ago, and was keen to see what it was like now, and I really wanted to go there as I had heard the karst landscapes were beautiful, so we had agreed to make that the main destination of Ant's two week holiday with me. It seemed like a simple plan. However, we didn't count on the near-complete lack of English speakers in Guangzhou. Getting to the city from Hong Kong was relatively easy and, arriving after dark, we found a cheap hotel to stay in and decided to venture out to buy our train ticket to Guilin the next day. To cut a long story short, it took us 5 hours of negotiating the metro system, taxis, outdated maps,
a horrendously busy train station, and unhelpful hotel staff before we finally found a travel agent who spoke English and booked our tickets for us for the next evening. By this point Ant was seriously wondering how I had managed to make it halfway round the world in one piece, because what with the disastrous camera-buying incident in Hong Kong and my complete inability to get off the metro at the correct stop or the hotel lift on the right floor, he questioned my apparent lack of common sense and sense of direction with much hilarity. I must admit, I was beginning to question it too . . .
The next day, not wanting to miss our train, and with proudly-acquired tickets in hand, we arrived at the aforementioned hellishly busy train station two hours early to wait for our train. After a small amount of confusion, we established which waiting hall we were to go to, and sat down on the floor in the increasingly packed room to wait for the boarding announcement that we wouldn't understand a word of. Thankfully, it wasn't that difficult to figure out when we had to board, as at the designated time
the whole room of people rose to their feet and squished their way towards the doors. We took this as our cue.
The 13 hour overnight journey to Guilin was fairly non-eventful and peaceful, or at least it would have been if it hadn't been for the Devil himself - a man in our compartment who managed to possess nearly every single trait that I find unbelievably irritating or disgusting in a human being. He was incapable of holding a conversation at a normal volume. He masticated with his mouth open. He slurped his drink. He snored at a level that even my earplugs couldn't block out. I liked him so much. Despite all this, I amazingly had a reasonably good night's sleep, although having to wake up and leave the train at Guilin at 6am stung a little. After booking tickets for our late-morning boat trip to Yangshuo, finding breakfast of noodles from a street vendor outside the station (in which I put a HUGE amount of chilli sauce thinking it was something else), Ant and I killed a few hours by walking around Guilin, stopping at a hotel 'just for tea' (it was impossible to find somewhere
to have just a cup of tea, so Ant had to order some food as well). At the designated hour, we boarded the bus to take us to where our boat trip would begin, and after waiting an hour for some other passengers outside their hotel, we belatedly made it to the boat.
The boat trip was really cold, especially for me having come from the heat of Hong Kong, the Philippines and, before that, Australia, but the karst scenery was so stunning that it went a long way to alleviate the discomfort. It really was so beautiful. After an uncomfortable final leg of the journey in a squashed minibus with my backpack balancing precariously on my lap (and making my legs go numb in the process), we eventually arrived in Yangshuo at around 4pm. I liked the town immediately as, despite the high level of tourism, it has a lovely atmosphere and it is certainly a lot easier to stay there than anywhere else I had been to in China, as many more people speak English. There are market stalls and shops selling beautiful fabrics and other gifts and souvenirs, copious restaurants and cafes offering both Chinese and
Western food, and, acting as a glorious backdrop to every view and at any angle are the strange, awe-inspiring karst mountains. Ant was nearly lost for words, having found the tiny one-hotel town of 24 years ago changed beyond recognition. But I think he was soon happy to discover that it had retained the charm that it had in 1983 - a fact I'm sure is due, at least in part, to its incredible geographical situation. There is just no escaping those mountains!
One of the first things Ant and I did upon arriving in the town was buy some warm clothes, as we quickly realised that neither of us had expected or prepared for the weather to be so cold. Thankfully, if there is one thing you can do easily in Yangshuo, it is go shopping. Mission accomplished in near-record time.
Unfortunately, after eventually arriving in Yangshuo I soon became quite ill. It seemed that the blood infection from the bite I got on the island had not totally dissipated, so some other bites that I had became infected in the same way and soon I was in a lot of pain. I had taken the precaution
of buying some more antibiotics when I was in Manila, just in case, and I started taking them. However, after a few days they didn't appear to be working and all they really seemed to be doing was making me feel ill. Fed up and upset that this was putting a dampener on my short time with Ant, I decided to visit a Chinese herbalist to see if she could help. Dr Lily Li, a well-respected local doctor, took a look at my tongue, hands, fingernails and eyes, and felt my pulse, then prescribed me a three-day course of the most foul, bitter-tasting medicine I think I have ever had. Slowly but surely, it seemed to have an effect and the infection began to clear up a little and, even though the infection was still there, my leg was no longer in pain and I was able to enjoy myself a lot more.
While in Yangshuo with Ant, we really didn't seem to do an awful lot. This was mostly due to my leg falling off (ok, so it didn't literally fall off), but also we both seemed to be happy going for walks and the odd bike ride,
shopping, and sitting around relaxing and catching up. For the first four nights in Yangshuo we stayed at a place just outside the main town, which offered good Chinese food as part of the price for accommodation. It was a nice place, if a little odd, but there wasn't really a decent communal area so we began to feel a little isolated despite its reasonably close proximity to the town. We did learn to play Mahjong one evening with an Austrian couple, which was great fun. However, for the second half of Ant's holiday we decided to try out a place to stay that I had both read about and been recommended. Called 'Outside Inn' and run by a shy Dutch guy, this guesthouse was situated in Chau Long Village, a small settlement about 4km outside Yangshuo in the heart of the local countryside. It was beautiful, the room was great (even if, due to the weather, the beds were a little damp - a common problem in most places this time of year), the staff were friendly and the in-house restaurant served fantastic Chinese and Western food, so we weren't lacking for anything. It was a great four days
- every morning, Ant would get up early (leaving me to sleep - I was constantly tired thanks to the infection) and take a walk and have a swim in the river. He would then return to the guesthouse, I would be up by then and we would have our respective breakfast/lunch before embarking upon whatever we had planned for that day. In the evenings we would sit and play cards, and every time, almost without exception, Ant's incredible good fortune and my apparent lack of any luck whatsoever meant that he won every game we played. After a few days of this happening, I was beginning to lose hope of ever beating him at anything. On our second evening at Outside Inn, we got chatting to a Dutch couple and another solo Dutch traveller called Edgar, Caroline and Ruud, and decided to invite them to join our game. After teaching them the rules (we were playing Sh*thead - staple card game of travellers across the globe), between the four of us we were able to beat Ant and thus I ended my losing streak. The fact that I had to enlist the help of three others to finally achieve
this is not lost on me, however I chose not to dwell on this fact and to just revel in the glory, however short-lived!
On Ant's last night in Yangshuo, we went to an outdoor 'light show', which was located on the outskirts of the town, on the river and surrounded by the karst mountains. Its name is rather misleading, as it was much more of a rounded theatrical experience than just a light show - complete with singing, dancing and spectacular choreographed routines and there were a couple of moments during the show that left both Ant and myself almost breathless. It was beautiful.
The two weeks with Ant flew by, and before we knew it, it was time for him to head back to Hong Kong for his flight home. After saying goodbye to him and watching him board the bus for Guilin, I got pretty homesick and spent the next couple of hours feeling sorry for myself in a cafe on West Street (the main tourist area of Yangshuo). I spent that night in a dismal hostel in the town, possibly the worst hostel I have encountered on this trip. The room was tiny with
no space for bags, there was no mosquito net on the window or the bed, so I had to haphazardly hang mine using my travel washing-line and some gaffer tape (needless to say, it kept falling on me during the night), and the bathroom was dirty and smelly. I was due to stay there for 2 nights, but after the first night I resolved to never set foot in the place again.
The following week I had booked a week's Tai Chi course at a local Martial Arts school (Long Tou Shan Martial Arts School) which cost 880 yuan for the week, including all lessons, private room, internet and three meals a day. I was really looking forward to learning more about Tai Chi, something that I had been interested in for some time but had never tried before. Each day, we had three hours of tai chi in the morning and, as there were not many people there when I was, I asked if I could do yoga in the afternoons, which was for two hours. Although to start with it didn't seem like I was doing much, it was exhausting but exhilarating exercise and every morning I
would wake up with aching muscles in places I never knew I had them. Mei, the master and owner of the centre, is such a tiny, shy, unassuming woman when you first meet her that it was amazing to see her totally transform when she was teaching us into someone with a seemingly infinite amount of inner and outer strength and power. The effortless way she could challenge her energy and demonstrate the 'form' with such ominous grace and beauty was awe-inspiring, and although I actually progressed fairly well when I was studying there, she would often laugh at me for the overly-balletic way I would do tai chi. (Old habits die hard - I practicised ballet for 10 years when I was child, and to get used to not having to point my toe when my leg was extended was very difficult!) I was in a group with a Chinese guy and an Israeli couple, who were all really great people, and during the lessons Mei showed us how to breathe properly to channel the flow of qi through our bodies (known as Qigong), something that is a hugely important element of learning the basics of the martial art.
I enjoyed this part of the sessions far more than the actual 'push hands' part, as I wanted to learn tai chi primarily for its strengthening, relaxing and meditative properties far more than to learn to fight. I found the breathing exercises comparatively easy, as the technique of breath control is similar in many ways to singing. The afternoon yoga sessions were generally just myself and Mei, and I looked forward to these sessions every day because, after my taste of yoga when I was in Katoomba, I was keen to broaden my knowledge and so the opportunity for one-on-one tuition was extremely appealing. Each day I could see improvements in my abilities of both tai chi and yoga, which made me feel really great, and the whole week was so rewarding. It is difficult to articulate the things I learned when I was there, and unfortunately I didn't write down many of the terms for the things I learned, so this entry has rather over-simplified my week there.
Every day, between the two sessions and often in the evenings, I would hitch a lift into the town on the back of the Mei's electric scooter, and spend a
couple of hours sitting in my favourite haunt, Kelly's Cafe, chatting to the staff and some friends, both expats and fellow travellers that I had met in the town and at the school. I got to know some lovely Israeli travellers and a couple of English people while in Yangshuo, and we would spend many an hour eating, drinking and playing cards. My time at the school and with Nimrod and Michal, Sergio, Slavic, Kelly, Mei, Simon and Anna was a happy one, and I was very sad when at last the time came to leave Yangshuo. I had been there for around two and a half weeks, a long time compared to the length of time that most people spend there, and had gotten to know the town quite well.
Lasting memories of Yangshuo are plentiful and were a feast for all my senses: the seemingly endless sounds of firecrackers at all times of the day and night, due to Qingming; the deafening croaks of the frogs outside the school at night; happy times at Kelly's; being bombarded by shouts of 'bamboo! bamboo!' every time Ant and I walked past the turning to a bamboo rafting place; Ant's
constant exclamations of 'nice jacket' every time he saw a man wearing a worker's jacket (Ant really coveted them); eating Marmite for the first time in ages; shopping and bargaining in Yangshuo's market (Ant and I got really good at bargaining - we think!); cycling in the gorgeous countryside with Ant and Joseph, our guide from Outside Inn . . .
More on China to follow . . .
Advertisement
Tot: 0.202s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 18; qc: 106; dbt: 0.1341s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.5mb
Mike
non-member comment
i have this vague memory of two friends.......
thanks for the postcard - it looks awesome, wish I could be there. Nice to see you've got rid of your overdramatic tendencies and played it cool about the leg. (hehe) Good to hear from you. Hope it all goes well.