Guilin---------> Yangshuo!!

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Welcome to Yangshuo, my favourite city in China (as well as Beijing)!!

A lot smaller and more rural looking than Guilin this city is an absolute gem. Tiny cobbled streets are full of touristy titbits but are quaint just the same. Then there's also an incredible night life! Our hostel had a roof top bar so we met many people from many countries around the world. Our favourite most interesting person was Zak from Canada who we nicknamed Turtle because he spoke like the turtle in the film Finding Nemo. He has been traveling for absolutely ages all over the world, really cool kid. Our first day there we hired bikes and rode to the Yulong river. Stunning views with peaks lining the riverside. We then jumped in and swam around amongst the bamboo rafts and water snakes. Bliss!

As usual the food here is amazing but Yangshuo has just a great atmosphere here that we loved. If we had had more time we would have stayed a lot longer. Our evenings were taken over by America's ubiquitous drinking game: beer pong!! Both of us were surprisingly pretty damn good! A hidden talent we were not aware of. Needless to say that after winning 3 times in a row, that's a lot of beer (plus what we had drank before we even started..), we were little worse for wear! The next day we went on a raft down the Li river to a small town called Xing Ping. This is famous thanks to the 20 yuan note which has an image of peaks and a river taken from here. The raft all the way down the river was incredible! Very calming with spectacular views (and no hangover to speak of WIN).

To summarise, WE LOVE YANGSHUO!

Next stop: VIETNAM!!!! Bring it on Hanoi, we are dying to find out what it's like chez vous!!!

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Photos

Working hard in the rice paddy fields
Gorgeous limestone peaks in the background