Babie does China

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Well hello again, and again apologies for the mass email.

and a second apology to the majority of people who replied to my last email saying "when the hell did you go to china??". ahem, yes well ..

We spent an eye-opening 2 weeks in china. after suriving the train station at guangzhou (and subsequently discovering its notority for chaos) and a couple of days at Guilin, we took a boat down the Li River to a lovely village called Yangshou which is nestled in among the rock formations in the region. and it is breathtakingly lovely. Being the avid photographer I am not, I have searched the internet and found some other people's photographs of this region to give you an idea of what it looks like. I would promise to show you all my photos but I didn't actually bring a camera ...

I am not sure how long we spent in yangshuo (a good sign I expect!) but we had a delicious time hanging out in the town, hiring bikes and cycling around the region visiting strange cave formations, moon mountain, temples and sampling the local delicacies. although I could not bring myself to try the local dogs. speaking of dog meat, apparently some dogs are pets and some dogs for eating - the smaller the dog the better for eating. given my preference for larger dogs, I must say that seems reasonable..

One day we hired electric scooters from the town and went looking for a village called Foo Li. Given the cold (about 3 degrees) I naturally was wearing every item of clothing in my backpack and some more that I had bought along the way. including a pink "hoodie" (hooded tracksuit top) and pink scarf. not sure why the pink, but it was warm. As I was the only girl in the group naturally I was given the all-pink electric scooter to ride. So just picture this - very white kate in pink jumper, pink scarf on pink scooter resplendant with pink ribbons tied around every bit of krome on the bike, motoring at high speed (if you can call 40kms/hr down a bumpy dirt road high speed..) racing through rice paddies, mud hut villages with the ubiquitous small children running after me shouting "hello! hello!". the boys reckon I looked like Barbie Does China. well, I always liked to make an impression. the only thing I regret is having dispensed with the long blond lockes.

And now i have found my utopia. after leaving Yangshou on Tuesday and travelling by taxi, plane, train, plane, taxi, taxi again, plane, tram, mini-bus, ferry and long boat, I arrived late last night at The Santuary on Kho Phangan in Thailand to find that the house I booked is even more lovely than I expected: high up in virgin rainforest, the handbuilt house (with massive platform bed) has 180 degree views of the ocean. I even have my own private jungle boulder (with foot bridge to the house) with expansive views out across the Gulf of Thailand. and a hammock, of course. I am here now for 9 days and am very much looking forward to doing nothing.

hope you are all well. apologies for sending tales of holidays to those at work. I hope the new year is being kind.

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