Advertisement
29th May As you probably noticed at the top, yes we are in Hong Kong. But had such a good last day in Yanghsuo thought we'd write that bit first. So here goes...
Paul - Forgot to say yesterday that we organised to meet up with a Canadian girl called Alex to go to Moon Hill and the Water Caves. I hope she doesn't mind me calling her "girl"... oh well!
So anyway had to get up at the ridiculous hour of 9am to meet Alex downstairs in reception. As the Chinese girls in the hostel seem to like me, we managed to get our tickets for the Water Caves for 60 yuan instead of 80 yuan. So a nice little save there. It all counts! Decided we would get the bus as it looked like it would start to rain (this proved an excellent choice later) and set off for Moon Hill.
Tiny bit of history in that Moon Hill looks, rather surprisingly, like a moon! Wow! Apparently the views from the top are spectacular but as it was rather misty we didn't hold out much hope. Alex was telling us about how she had spent
Entrance to the cave
In that tiny crack? Really?.....a very long time studying in Australia and travelling the world and basically making up any excuse not to go back to Toronto, her home town! She kept telling us how lovely Toronto is but I pointed out that she had managed to stay away from there for the past 5 years so it can't be all that great. Apparently it is all that great and we should definately go and visit. Well, we'll see about that.
Got to Moon Hill with no fuss to be greeted by a crazed Chinese woman with gold teeth. Talk about a heart attack early in the morning. She ran up to the bus and started banging on it before we had even got off. Shouting and bawling some incoherent Chinese at us through the window, probably trying to sell us some Jade. She was keen! And did I mention the teeth? They were gold! We safetly navigated our way past her (and her teeth) and started up the climb up the hill. The view from the bottom to the top of Moon Hill was pretty nice so we've included a photo of it. Anyway saw a couple of signs on the way
saying "No linger, lightning danger" which were quite unsettling as the sky was a threatning shade of grey, it didn't seem to bother our gold toothed friend who was shouting "water", "coke" and "beer" in her broken English. After following us a long way up the hill she finally decided to leave us in peace and go back down, probably worried that her teeth might conduct lightning.
The climb was incredibly steep and pretty slippy, hadn't rained just yet but was still wet from the night before. After a while the girls started to tire but luckily we bumped into a random Dutch guy who told us it wasn't far to the top. This spurred them on a bit and we made it all the way to the top. The view was very impressive. Countryside for miles around and despite the mist we could see all the beautiful little green limestone peaks that surrounded us. Very nice indeed. After about 20 minutes of scenery gazing we wandered back down. The woman with the teeth had vanished, a suspicious looking pile of dust was at the side of the road...
Headed over to the Water Caves via a tiny
little mini bus with just us 3 in it. Got out and it started to pour down! And we were about to get very very wet and very very very muddy. Uh oh. Walked up to the caves and handed over our tickets - turns out it would be a tour with just us 3 on it which we were pleased about. First we stripped down to our shorts and t-shirts with our swimming stuff on underneath. Alex and I were given torches to guide ourselves, they obviously didn't trust Laura with high powered equipment! The entrance was by boat into a tiny little cave which you can see in the photos.
So our guide pushed the boat into the tiny cave and we were away. I had to literally duck all the way through the first 100m, the cave gap was that small. The guide pointed out some utterly pointless bits of rock until the first cavern opened up in front of us. It was very impressive, lots of different rock formations that we could go up and touch instead of being told to stand behind a rope or metal bar. Saw a couple of bats, not excatly
to Alex and Laura's liking! They shrieked a couple of times.
After about 30 minutes of caves we came to the mud bath! I have to say, this was a lot of fun. Just as much as it looks in the photos! Alex was the first to "flop in". Then me, then Laura. We all stood up, knee deep in thick mud and after the count of three dropped down on to our bellies in it. It was very cold and I couldn't believe how thick it was. You literally couldn't push anything to the bottom other than your feet and hands. So obviously childish behaviour came next! Laura shoving mud down my pants, Alex going down the mud slide, all 3 of us having a swimming race from one side to the other (if you moved more than 1 metre you were lucky!), and a lot of screaming and laughing. Really good fun and well worth it. Apparently it's good for your skin too. Well, whatever pleases you!
Got out the bath and had to navigate about 300 metres of really fast flowing icy cold water. Alex's flip flops kept flying off and we had to catch
them before they were swept away by the current. Apparently at the end we would get to wash all the mud off but what our guide didn't tell us was that first there was a half mile walk! Damn! To make matters worse, it was outside in the cold! Bitch! So cue loads of Chinese taking pictures of these three westerners caked in mud. Brilliant...
After the paparazzi had finished taking their pictures we arrived at the waterfall and dived under it with glee. Well, I WOULD have dived under it if the walk up to the falls hadn't been so slippy and I crashed over and slipped all the way into the river. The girls were amused, the Chinese in fits of laughter. I got up, diginity still in tact, and showered all the mud off under the powerful flow of water. There was a little pool at the top near the entrance to the caves and we all dove in for a swim.
Got a couple of photos printed out and headed back to Yangshuo feeling good. Arranged to meet Alex later for dinner as Laura wanted to spend the afternoon shopping. Apparently I'm not allowed
to say anything about this as it involves people's presents and such other exciting mysteries. So after a couple of hours haggling we got what we wanted and went back to the hostel to read for a bit. Laura finished the best book she has ever read (The Rule of Four) and we went out for dinner.
Had drunk duck (again! but it's sooo good) egg fried rice with pork, noodles with veg, gong bao chicken and something else that I forgot. Very tasty and very cheap so we can't argue. Alex didn't eat a lot as she was still getting over jet lag which meant more for me! Went to a bar for an hour to while away the time before our bus to Hong Kong. This is where we saw the t-shirts with pictures on. It took us a while to notice that they had such sensitive pictures like Hitler, Bin Laden with an American flag in his hand, Sadam with a couple of rocket launchers aimed at the US. I don't think you'd get away with that in England... maybe France. (Speaking of France, my plan to get a French and Brazil shirt on the cheap
is going well. Apparently they are less than a pound in Vietnam. Brilliant!) Anyway said our goodbyes to Alex and she told us to come visit Toronto when we get to Niagra in January. Well we might just do that!
Now the bus, or as I like to call it, the torture chamber. It was fucking awful! The "beds" (if they can be called that) were shaped to fit you. Except they were shaped to fit someone who was about 5ft 5 inches. It would have been better if they had just been flat normal beds. At least I could have curled up. But no! They were pissing well SHAPED! Shaped beds! Unbelivable! To make matters worse, at the end of the bed your feet had to fit under this little compartment and there was no way of putting them on top of it because some GENIUS had put little spikey things there. Who invented this bus!?! Suffice to say, I got no sleep. But I did develop about twenty sexy marks all over my body where the torture device was digging into me.
30th May Laura - The bus was an adventure. It's a
good job we don't get travel sick because we were hitting so many potholes I was literally getting thrown an inch into the air! The beds were very small, even I only just about managed to squeeze my feet into it. But to be fair they were quite comfortable and the bus was spotlessly clean. It was strange being strapped into bed, but this was the first bus we've been on in China with seat belts so it was a novelty! There was no toilet, so no bad toilet smells like on the night trains. This made me happy, even if it did mean waiting for the bus to stop before I could pee.
We had to change buses at 9 am (I have no idea where) and 'princess' here got her bag carried by the legendary bus driver. Yay! He's my new best friend. Then we got another bus to the HongKong border. At some point an army guy got on to check our passports but I was half asleep so I'm not sure what this was about because when we got to HongKong we had to go through passport control anyway. Maybe he just likes amusing himself
Random T shirts on display in Yangshuo
Beckham, Harry Potter, Bruce Lee, Natalie Portman, Hitler.... with passport photos.
When we got through customs (another cool stamp in my passport!) we had to get a train into the centre. This took about 35 minutes. Yawn. We walked to "Chungking Mansions" - a place reccommended by the lonely planet. The name is a bit of lie, this place in no way resembles any type of mansion and is certainly not fit for any king (or princess for that matter). It's a huge scruffy old building on the main road which houses lots of hostels and guesthouses on different floors.
We went to the cheapest hostel in the book, called 'travellers hostel' or something, and got a single room (which actually has a double bed covered in a teddy bear sheet). It is very cheap (especially for HongKong) but it is like a prison cell. I'm not kidding. It's around 5m by 5m and is tiled from ceiling to floor. The 'ensuite' is actually a toilet and shower (located conveniently above the toilet) both within a shower cubicle. Which has no door, but sports a rather nice mickey mouse shower curtain. And the bed is less than a metre from the 'ensuite' so going to the
toilet is FUN - maximum privacy! There is a window in a room, but there's another building less than a metre away so we won't be opening it. But really, it's not soooo bad. At least it's clean. And the fact that Paul is reading 'The Green Mile' right now ties in quite well with the room.
So we got showers and had some lunch then we got the Star Ferry over to Hong Kong island. We went to the Virgin Atlantic office to talk to them about changing our flight to Vietnam (we're going to bring it forward by a few days because HongKong is too expensive to linger in) and went to the Vietnam consulate to apply for our visas. Fingers crossed these will come back before we intend to fly!
Hong Kong seems nice enough, and has a good mixture of people from all over the world. But to me it doesn't really seem all that different from Shanghai so I'm not that bothered about staying here. We're itching to get to a nice beach in Vietnam!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.297s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 20; qc: 94; dbt: 0.1909s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
Big Bro
non-member comment
Footie shirts
I'm off to buy a Lincoln City, Boston Utd, Hull City and Cheltenham Town top. You will not be allowed back into the country Paul as I have notified the emabassy and they have been told to look out for a traitor in a Brazil shirt saying "Safety First"! Saw Nan and Grandad today they are good. Keep up the hard work - i here that the shares in Chinese internet cafes have risen due to an increase in profits in the last month!