Guangxi

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As it turned out the bus that we were worried about was just a free bus to take you to the ferry, we rode our bike like losers before boarding the ferry with the hundreds of other people who all wanted to be the first aboard, we waited and surprisingly our beds were still there when we arrived. It was the randomist ferry, and went so slowly that i could have swum faster but we had a four person room (for some reason they wouldn't sell us cheaper tickets) that we were meant to share with these two old dudes, but they didn't want to sleep with us so swapped with a couple of women who were so petrified that we would steal there stuff that they slept hugging there bags. The ferry arrived in Beihai at 5am and surprisingly its still dark then so we sat outside the ferry terminal for an hour and a half eating random (and kinda gross) food that some women kept feeding us (who know why she was still there, we think her family forgot to pick her up). We then rode into town along massively wide and very deserted roads (thanks mainly to the hour) but found a cheap hotel and then tried to get our visas extended. This should have been easy but our cheap hotel had never had overseas guests so never bothered to register with the police so there was a little drama over that in which the police officer told us there where heaps of other nicer hotels that we should stay at - it wasn't even that bad.

We then spent the rest of the week in Beihai, visiting the aquarium where they had some really gross dead fish on display as well as getting a couple of divers in a tank of fish doing some random dance/fake wedding cermony to the titanic song, everyone else loved it, we though it was a collosial waste of money. Also we went to silver beach, which was pretty cool but kept getting yelled out for having our bikes on the beach, we weren't even allowed to walk them, i think they wanted us to pay to park them but we just went a hundred meters or so down the beach where no one else was and hung out there. We also splashed out and went to a western hotels buffet, i don't think they realised how much we could eat, we turned up at 5.30 and were getting hints about leaving at 8, but then the waiter that was trying to make friends with Katherine found out we were kiwis and the manager of the hotel was a kiwi so we had to meet him. But there was the best food ever, I think that we both must have downed at least 6 plates of salmon each and thats not even mentioning what happened when i realised there was a choocolate fondu tower thing and proper icecream. It was all we could do not to go back the next day. Also did a day trip on the bus to Nanning, where we hit the shops (although didn't buy anything as then we would have to carry it) but checked out the river and the gardens which meant katherine had to do exercises on the machines with the locals.

We also got the ferry to Weizhou Island, a couple of hours away, but it was really windy so the fast ferry was cancelled and we were all put on the same ferry that we arrived on a couple of days ago, so random being shunted into rooms with beds at 9 in the morning and being forced to have a nap as there was no seating. But the island was really cool, a volcanic island with the best beaches that we have seen. The only unfortunate thing was that I convinced Katherine we didn't need to take bikes and as it turns out the island was quite large and the tuk tuks were really expensive, so we spent the whole day running around the island seeing the sights until the ferry left. But its pretty funny what they made a tourist attraction, "drippy rock" was the best, the blurb about it was sounding very amazing but actually it was like a waterfall with almost no water, so a rock with a couple of drips falling off it.

From Beihai we decided that due to the colder weather that has arrived and our limited time plus the rather boring ride we would get the bus to Guilin, 7 hours later, rather the 8 days, we arrived. Guilin is pretty touristy so lots of english and very easy to get food, but we found the best pizza things for 2.5 RMB each - they were like a nan base with meat mince, we think that its pork but it could be beef, rat, dog or anything really but its cheap and tastes really good. The man now knows exactly what we want before we open our mouths. Although i'm trying to get commission for all the other people in the hostel that i'm sending there. But we spent a couple of days in Guilin doing the touristly thing, more intrepid cave exploring and climbing limestone hills but found the entrance fees abit steap so took off into the country side to visit the Chengyand wind and rain bridges.

This took us four days to get there and was some of the coolest riding that we have done on the whole trip, amazing scenery and very few other people. The village of Ma'an was quite toruisty and had some cultural dance think that the dude at the guest house made us go to, which ended with us up dancing some local dance that was more or less walking around in cirlces giving people high fives, we spent the whole time in hystrics while the photographer took photos of the western girls that i'm sure we will see on the internet later advertising the place. The bridges were quite massive, covered with seats and as it turns out, the next day it was windy and rainy so we took shelter in the wind and rain bridge, brillant.

From here we headed back to Guilin before riding down to Yangshou.

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