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Published: February 22nd 2010
The second half of our month in China was by far the best. We left our luggage at the hostel in Guilin and took a day/overnight trip to a tiny hill village called Ping'an. Its one of a few small farming communities collectively know as The Dragons Backbone, famed for their rice terraces. Believe me, it took a lot of convincing from Tom to get me to go and see a rice farm but surprisingly it was really worth it. It was totally out of season and the worst time of year to go but because of that normally tourist-packed walks and hotels were completely empty. We had the place to ourselves and it was beautiful. We stayed one night in Ping'an and got up early the next morning for the four hour walk to Dazhai. It rained the whole time but it was still stunning. We were followed by a dog from Ping'an for half the walk who we named Nimble, cause he was a bit of a dork and could climb the terraces mighty fast but he got scared by a bull on the path and went back home.
That night we took a bus to Yangshuo, south
of Guilin. Yangshuo is heavily geared for tourists, local and foreign. Its kind of like a calmer mini-Amsterdam with canals and cafes and cobbled streets and neon lights but theres a lot to keep you busy away from the crowds. We found a super cheap hostel and spent about four days walking and bike riding to nearby towns. The weather was outstanding and we also found an amazing little hole in the wall noodle place (these things are not as common as we expected) that pretty much took care of three meals a day. There was also a fresh fruit market that sold incredible strawberries and steamed sweet buns in the mornings. Heaven.
From Yangshuo it was an overnight bus straight to the Hong Kong border and a train took us to Kowloon. We approached Hong Kong with guarded wallets but it was tough to be tight in shopping Mecca. Within the first day I nabbed myself a pair of Japanese designer limited edition Pumas for $50 reduced from $300! The layout of the city seemed a little daunting at first but its so easy to get around and there's so much to see. I took a free Feng
Shui lesson and free Jewellery Appreciation class through the tourist office while Tom drooled in the electronics shops. We found a Ben and Jerrys AND an amazing, fully-westernised, hardly-authentic Indian restaurant. It was just like being back home!
It was steadily approaching Chinese New Year and spurred by fear of expensive accommodation and news report of people having to buy local train tickets two weeks in advance we decided to escape China and booked a flight to Japan, planning to come back in a couple of weeks, further north.... if one of the most expensive countries in the world hadn't rinsed our backpacker budget dry.
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