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Published: April 7th 2012
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My flight to Guangzhou went fine and I arrived about 8pm. After asking a few people I hopped on the right bus to take me into the city, and from the bus station I caught a taxi the last couple of kilometres to my hostel. The hostel was very modern with drinks and food available, and my 6 bed dorm room was fine. I also liked the location, just a short 8 cent ferry ride across the river to Shamien Island and a 15 cent ferry ride to the main part of town. On my first full day I just walked around the city area and Shamien Island. It was a pleasure watching the older people enjoying themselves in the park, dancing, singing, and exercising. The following day I caught the impressive underground to a large park in the city where I spent a few hours walking around and reading a book. On the last day before I caught my overnight bus to Guilin, I had a quick look at the very tall Canton Tower. A couple of activities high up the tower looked interesting but they were a little expensive, so I decided to give them a miss.
The
overnight bus to Yangshuo was fully booked so I ended up getting the bus to Guilin. Surprisingly this was my first sleeper bus ever, and I was a little unsure about it when I hopped up into the top bed in the middle row to find that my legs were a lot longer than the space provided. I eventually found a position that was quite comfortable and even got quite a bit of sleep. Our bus actually stopped at Yangshuo on the way but due to some bad information I received from one of the other passengers, I failed to get off. An hour later at 2.30 am we arrived at Guilin bus station. I found a small restaurant that was open and stayed there for a few hours before buying my ticket for the 7.30am bus back to Yangshuo.
I arrived in Yangshuo just before 9am and started looking for accomodation. Due to the fact that it was the start of a 3 day chinese holiday period the room prices were very high, so I ended up getting a bed in a 6 bed dorm for a couple of nights. That day I looked around the town and
the river and ended up sharing a boat ride down the river with a couple from Shenzen. The scenery was very nice with the karst formations all around us, but there were so many boats on the water that it was hard to really enjoy it. Also the visibility wasn't great so my pictures didn't turn out so good. The following day the weather was quite clear so I just wandered around river and took some photos. After a couple of days I moved from the dorm room to a single room above a restaurant for the same price. I really enjoyed my room as well as the super friendly staff. I ended up spending 4 nights there and during the day just made some trips by bus to some small villages. I visited the towns of Fuli and Xingping which had plenty of old buildings, some done up and many not. Wherever I go there are many Chinese tourists and they far out number the foreigners, which is a change to Southeast Asia where i have spent a lot of my time traveling. These local tourists are very respectful and are quite keen to practise their english with me,
which I get a kick out of. On my last day in Yangshuo I caught a bus about 11km out of town and thought I would walk back along the Yulong river via some paths and small roads. Due to a lot of rain, mud, and not being sure if I was on the right paths after only a few hours I hopped on a local guys motorbike for a ride back to the main road where I caught a small bus back to town. Despite the conditions the walk was really nice going through some very basic villages and farmland whilst being surrounded by the karst mountains.
Tomorrow I have booked a bus to the world famous Dragon's Backbone rice terraces. I hope the weather fines up a litle, I'm starting to get sick of all this rain.
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