China is one crazy country

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Well hello from China, apologies for the mass email. I just have to open by saying this is one crazy country: let me tell you a story.

we arrived and had an interesting time in guangzhou (previously known as canton now a city of 9,000,000 its very poluted dirty rubbish everywhere etc..) we spent a couple of non-eventful days wandering around and then grabbed a taxi to the train station where we were booked on the 5.30pm sleeper to guilin. we were running about 40 mins early and were bickering about what to do with so much time up our sleeve considering we already had tickets. of course we decided it would be appropriate to simply drink beer. the pass time of kings.

well. nothing and i mean nothing could have prepared me for what greeted us at the train station. there were thousands (yes i mean thousands) of people standing outside the train station. there were queues that went for 100s of metres. it was incredible. and every single person (except damon and i) was chinese. it was like 11.30pm at the gates of big day out. i reckon there were about 15,000 people waiting for the train. i couldn't believe it. we managed to (push, shove, swear, smile, sweet-talk, beg, grovel, steal, weep, trip, stalk, harrass) our way to the correct terminal and then managed to queue jump the biggest queue in the history of mankind (compliments of my sweet talking and batting eyes) only to be met by more 1000s of people inside. just walking to the platform was the biggest crush I have ever been in. we got to the end of it and just had to take a photo. i am sure i spent the whole time with my jaw on the ground.

today we are in one of the pride and joys of the country - guilin. and after recouperating from our overnight sleeper train (another story, but i will say that we managed to teach two guys with broken english the intricacies of the card game 500 - so much so that they beat us!) we are off to check of the incredible rock formations i can see looming in the mist in the distance.

happy new year to you all. and i hope the bush fires are not lapping at your doorsteps (as the chinese news service would have me believe)

kate

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