The beginning of the tour...

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Day 4 -Leaving HK and Sleeper Train to Guilin

So our tour started for real on the morning of Day 4. Our group is fantastic. Our leader is Jerry (yes that's his "Aussie" name) and he's a local and just the funniest guy. He loves having us teach him slang to use. There are 9 of us in the group. Kate, Dean and I (Kate and I are referred to as wife #1 and #2 seeing as up until recently the chinese men could have many wives). Then there is two couples probably similarly aged to Dean & I - an English couple 4 months in to their 1 year honeymoon travelling around thw world (wow!), an Aussie couple from Northern NSW, another young pommy guy who is also travelling the world, and an older retired Aussie guy.

They are all just lovely and we can see we will have a ball together.

Anyway, in the morning we caught the hydrofoik from HK to Guangzhou, and then had lunch at a hotel and a wander around before making our way to the train statino for the first of 6 nights that we will spend on sleeper trains.

It wasnt toooo bad. Each little room (open area) has 6 bunchs, top middle and bottom on either side, then to the other side of the train there are seats etc. We had fun anyway. The beds themselves were hard as all crap and Dean & I didnt' sleep the greatest but TIC (you will hear me write that alot, meaning "This is CHina", ie, its all an adventure). The other catchphrase Jerry taught us is "Oi Choi Oi" meaning "Oh my Budda" instead of oh my god hahah I love it.

Day 5 - Guilin to Yangshuo

So we woke up at around 6am and arrived in to Guilin station at around 6:40am. From there we caught a bus to our hotel in Yangshuo (about an hour or so). We had breaky at the hotels local bar (MC Blues, very westernised catering for the tour groups but has a lovely Bali type feel). Again everything is so freaking cheap. A full cooked breaky with juice and coffee even in the hotel is only about $5 - loving it!!!

After that we did a boat cruise around Yangshuo - cant wait to upload some photos and show you guys it is AMAZING. All these mountains - I just cant describe it.

Our hotel here is beautiful. I dont know what we expected with this tour but Gecko's catchphrase is "grassroots" which it is to some extent but really nicer than we were expecting (ie busses are really coaches, the hotel room has two double beds and is very clean and modern etc etc).

So this arvo a quick nanna nap then off for dinner and to see the local fisherman and their trained cormorants.

We are here in Yangshuo for 2 monre full days (bicycling tomorrow, and then perhaps a local cooking lesson) and then we head to either Chengdu to see the pandas or to the Yangzte for the cruise (hahah I dont have my internerary here and cant remember!).


Hope everyone is doing well.


S
xxx

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Comments

[Laura]

Wow
It sounds like you ar ehaving an amazing time can't wait to see those photos and hear more:)