Tuesday - bike ride and afternoon chilling and leaving Yangzhou

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Today was another late and lazy start which is always welcome after the busy schedule we had been following of late, and we were so hot in the nightbwecdidntbreallybsleep that well, we onkynhadvavfan to keep us cool but it was a very hit night. Our guide Jim had organised for us to hire mountain bikes from our host Liu and we were heading off on a 17km bike ride around the local country side. It was. Hot sunny day and we had plenty of sun cream on and water stowed on our bikes.



Our destination was the biggest round house and along the way we stopped to take photos of the amazing scenery, it reminded me of Sri Lanka in places. Along our journey Liu took the lead in his van and showed us the way, he also had our bags and water on board, just like a support vehicle in the Tour de France lol.



The roads were pretty quiet out in the sticks and were fairly flat with only the odd incline here and there. We passed the odd local on the way and greeted them with our only word of hello in Cantonese lol.



When we reached the round house we parked up the bikes and had a good wander around. There were a few old people sitting around chatting and drinking tea, I think we were a talking point for them lol. Sadly the round house had fallen in to disrepair as most of the young people have moved to the big city. Many of the rooms were locked and empty. Unlike the previous round house we had visited this was not a tourist attraction and we were able to climb the stairs to the 3rd floor and walk around.



In places we saw abandoned furniture including beds, chairs, rice grinding machines and even coffins! These were very long and narrow and we did wonder how someone would fit in, we didn't open on to find out how big they were. Everything was covered in dirt and dust and looked like it had been untouched for years. There was also the smell of old wood like you would get in a wood shop.



After our visit to the round house we got back on the bikes and headed to a small village for lunch. Liu took the bikes back to the accommodation and we had lunch. The restaurant owner was very hospitable and gave us copious amounts of free tea of two or three different varieties, which was lovely of him. after lunch we had a wander down to the river whilst we waited for Liu to return in the van to take us back to the accommodation.



When we got back the boys decided to head off to the lagoon again but Bhavisha and I stayed in our rooms and got some sleep and took a shower before the boys got back and packed ready for our night train.



Later we had dinner and settled our bill and gave Liu a tip for being such an awesome host and looking after us so well. We left the accommodation saying our goodbyes and giving our thanks to Liu and his family and took a quick photo before heading off to the train station and the final night train of the trip - thank goodness! I never sleep well on the sleeper trains. This one proved to be the worst one of the trip as it was so hot on the train we didn't really sleep, and was rudely woken up by the train guard to swap my paper ticket back for my plastic card ticket. This is a totally pointless exercise and happens each time we get a night train and seems to serve no purpose. Each time we ask our guide why they do this none one has the answer! Grrrr very frustrating.

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