Yangshuo - Boats, Beer Pong & Bad Bad Massages!

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Ok so I’m still really behind with posting these but I will endeavour to get more on top of things soon!

But now casting my mind back to Guilin...

Our time in Guilin was very fleeting, having flown from Chengdu in order to avoid the 26 hour train journey (the flight was only 1.5 hours so god knows where the train goes?!) We stayed in the lovely ‘How Flowers’ hostel, chilled out for a day or two and decided to postpone our travel arrangements to Hong Kong for 3 days in order to visit the nearby UNESCO heritage site of Yangshuo.

As we had flown to the previous 3 places and were living far too much of a jet-set lifestyle for travellers, we decided this time to go by…bamboo raft! This took us about 4 hours down the river to Yangshuo, the boat however, disappointingly, was not made of bamboo but rather plastic tubing tied together. Nonetheless it made for a much more interesting mode of transport, definitely the epitome of ‘taking the scenic route’.

Yangshuo is very picturesque, lots of mini mountains or islands that are dotted along the river. Many people compare it to Ha Long Bay in Vietnam, we are lucky enough that we will get the chance to see both for ourselves in person on this trip.

Once arriving in the town centre it was then onto finding our hostel, whilst getting harassed by numerous people trying to sell you a room in theirs. Ours, however, ‘Showbiz’ was very nice, comfy, friendly staff and complete with rooftop bar with amazing views – all for the bargain price of £3 a night. I think I’m going to feel ripped off for everything once I get back home! We were sharing a room with 3 Swedes; Caroline, Daniel & Andreas who swiftly invited us out for a night of pool and beer pong.

We also went for some end of the night takeaway food. Now for most people this may be the slice of greasy pizza or heart-attack-in-a-wrapper-kebab but in China they do things different. You can get some tasty crickets, chickens feet or even cows penis (all available on a stick of course) apparently the cow penis was very hard and chewy according to one of our fellow travellers. As I usually do with Blackpool kebabs, I decided to give it a miss.

The following afternoon myself and Aimee decided to go for a spot of kayaking whilst the Swedish nursed their hangovers. What we thought was to be an hour or so of relaxed kayaking and photo taking however turned our to be a 4 hour marathon down the river with rapids and a very demanding guide constantly shouting to go faster and keep up! By the end ourselves and the other couple of people on the trip were all shattered and ended up clinging to his boat whilst he dragged us the remaining 10 minutes or so. The scenery was beautiful though and definitely a worthwhile experience.

After our unexpected bout of intense exercise we were feeling pretty worse for wear so thought we would treat ourselves to a traditional Chinese massage. Now if you like to be relaxed, soothed and come out feeling all calm and warm inside this is not for you. Firstly the masseurs were, to our horror, male and obviously well trained in the martial art of PAIN. I’m glad my contorted face was hidden in the hole of the table, all I could manage when he asked am I ok was a feeble ‘yeh’, too polite to admit it hurt like hell. Aimee had opted for a special foot massage whereas I went for the kidney one. So adding to the initial painful part was oil and pressure points technique. My ass got more attention than I feel was perhaps necessary, especially considering your kidneys are in your back – muscles hurt in places I wasn’t aware I even had!

After hobbling back to the hostel we vowed never again before adding ‘God I could really use a massage now!’ (In fairness after a few days you did feel pretty good but I’m still not convinced it was worth it!)

Our final night was spent more rooftop bar-hopping with the Swedes, some of their friends from a previous hostel and a couple of guys named Ian. The next day we bid farewell to Yangshuo and China as we boarded our sleeper train to Hong Kong...

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