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Published: October 3rd 2007
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After what seemed to be an all too early departure from Xi’an we flew south to Guilin then caught a bus then a minibus to get to our destination of Yangshuo. The area of Guilin and Yangshuo is famous for its extremely strange landscape - weird karst peaks surround the towns and the Li and Yu Rivers meander through them. Guilin isn’t anything to write home about so like a lot of other western tourists we chose to stay in Yangshuo.
To tell you the truth Yangshuo was a bit of a shock to the system as it is sooo focused towards western tourists with a long street lined with cafes and bars with western food and shops and hawkers everywhere selling souvenirs. It was great to have a toasted cheese and vegemite sandwich and watch some of the Rugby World Cup (at an Australian owned café) but the whole town was a bit bizarre and commercialized compared to the rest of mainland China! Arriving in the early evening, we decided to stay a place called Monkey Janes which had a great rooftop bar that over looked the town and river but unfortunately our room was directly underneath so wasn’t
Yangshuo
The best view we've had from a room yet. the quietest and as Ness was still not 100% we weren’t up for late nights socialising. The good thing was the room only cost 80 RMB per night - roughly AU$12 so it was bearable even though the beds were hard (like pretty much everywhere in Asia), the bathroom was the smallest we’ve seen and we had a resident mouse who left deposits around the place! It wasn’t till the day we were leaving that we realised that there were better options in town for the pretty much the same price (don’t always trust the Lonely Planet!)
We took it easy during the 3 days we spent in Yangshuo. The definite highlight was cruising down the Li River on a guys little houseboat with our feet dangling in the water. We could have gone on a large boat filled with other tourists but this way we got the boat and for a lot of the time, the river to ourselves. It gave us an opportunity to see the amazing scenery as well as observing life on the river which was doted with fish farms, a duck farm, houseboats and quite a few fishermen. Upon the recommendation of our “captain”
Yangshuo
Just a taste of the towns view we visited a little village which has been around for about 1000 years. To our shock we didn’t have to pay to get in (most villages on the tourist trail in China charge an entrance fee) and had an interesting time wandering around what was essentially a farming village. To finish the visit we sat in a “café” perched above the river and had a drink whilst chatting to the waitress via basic English (her), very broken Chinese (us) and the use of a phrase book. All in all it made for a lovely afternoon and getting away from the built up Chinese cities into the countryside for a few hours was exactly what we needed.
One of our nights was spent watching a show that is staged actually on the river, with around 600 performers singing and dancing on top of the water. Though really touristy it wasn’t bad with lots of lighting effects and some of the karst peaks were lit up to act as a backdrop. Most of our time in Yangshuo was spent pottering around, wandering the streets and hanging out in the cafes. We visited the farmers market which was interesting - lots of
Public gym to encourage the .1% overweight Chinese
You find these outdoor exercise yards all over China. Normally has a least one person in a suit swinging on something fruits, veges as well as all types of meat and fish (dried and fresh) for sale, including some live animals such as frogs and dogs……
After a few relaxing days we hopped on another plane to Shenzhen which is just over the border from Hong Kong (and a lot cheaper to fly to than Hong Kong itself). After an overnighter in a hotel near the airport we caught a bus to Hong Kong. Hong Kong was a great break for us and we ended up spending a lot more time (and money!) there than originally planned. Though it still has a definite Chinese feel, because of it’s colonial past there’s a lot more English spoken and is definitely a lot more westernized that mainland China.
We managed to see a couple of games of rugby - once with fellow Aussie Brendan that we had met in Hangzhou, at an English/Aussie bar in Lan Kwai Fong, an ex-pat bar area on Hong Kong Island. As both the All Blacks and the Wallabies were playing that night there were heaps of Kiwis and Aussies there - it was strange to be surrounded by such familiar accents again! In our whole
Yangshuo
Pic from the show performed on the fast running river time away, we have only run into two Aussies and one Kiwi, with most people being European, Israeli or American. After watching the games and having a few beers (lucky it was happy hour as drinking in Hong Kong isn’t cheap!) we made our way to the Central-Mid-Levels escalator - it’s the longest covered outdoor escalator in the world and takes about 30 mins to go up the different stages (it’s not continuous, you have to walk once in awhile). It takes you up the hill through an area called SoHo, which has lots of cafes and bars perched on these little hilly streets - really cool.
One of the best things about Hong Kong is the public transport - it’s fantastic! Lots of buses and the trains come every 3 mins (max.) We got what are called Octopus Cards which you load up with money then can swipe from in your wallet to pay for trains, buses as well as in some shops such as MacDonalds and chemists - so easy! Another thing is how friendly the Hong Kong people are and what fantastic service they provide. It really helped make our time there pleasurable!
Along with
visiting the history museum, going up the Peak Tram for an eagle-eye view of Hong Kong, visiting the Stanley Markets and Aberdeen Harbour, we spent a few hours at Ocean Park, a pretty lame theme park. It did have some redeeming features though - a fun rollercoaster on the headland with an amazing view, a cable car ride also with a great view f the back of Hong Kong Island and best of all - four pandas! They were so cute, we got to see them have a munch on some bamboo and the two youngest ones (about 2 years old) were in the same enclosure and tumbled around all over the place. Seeing them was definitely a highlight of our trip to Hong Kong! We took a few quick videos of them on our new digital camera (purchased in Hong Kong) - we’ve attached them to the blog, just click on the icons next to the blogs title at the top of the page. We had to reduce the size (and therefore the quality) of the videos for viewing over the web, hopefully they work and don't look too bodgy!
After getting our fill of Hong Kong and
the western ease that it gave, we paid a flying visit to Macau. To work in with flights we only had one night there and made the mistake of not staying right in the city so had to spend a bit on taxis! We made the most of our one night and wandered around the city centre which has a definite European feel to it, ate some fantastic Portuguese tarts and checked out the strip of brightly lit casinos. One thing about Macau was the amount of shark-fin soup being sold all over the place - at Ocean Park in Hong Kong they had big advertisements requesting people not eat the fins so it was a shock to see it being sold so prevalently in Macau, a lot more than anywhere else we have been. The next morning we slept in (the alarm on Anthony’s new mobile phone purchased in Hong Kong decided not to work) so we had a mad rush to try and make it to Shenzhen to catch our flight (missed the original ferry we were going to get but managed more by fluke than anything else to jump on another ferry going reasonably close to where
we had to be). Thank goodness!
And so, here we are now in the Yunnan province of China, in the very south-west of the country. We’ll be here visiting a few towns for a week or two before heading to Vietnam. We’ll let you know how it goes!
xx Vanessa and Anthony.
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DnA
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Hi from London
Great to hear you are getting around China OK and seeing heaps of fabulous places. Enjoying your blogs. Keep em coming