We got the bullet train from Shenzhen to Guilin, Casson was excited and was waiting to see how fast it went, at it's peak it went 305km per hour.

We arrived in Guilin and got a bus into town and had no idea where we were so we jumped in a taxi to get to our hotel. You should have seen the state of it, its without doubt the worst room we've booked throughout our entire trip. Every single wall was covered in damp and the paint was peeling off in sheets. The toilet was a squat pan and water (or toilet water) from another bathroom ran down the wall and onto our bathroom floor. I thought it was hilarious but Casson was devastated as it was the first room he'd booked in our 8 months so far. I'm not sure what he was expecting, it was £3 a night.

The smell of damp in the room got straight on our throats so we decided to head out as Casson was in need of a beer, it was about 9pm by this time. We ended up sat on a fountain at a really busy intersection drinking cans of beer from the shop till about midnight as this was preferable to being in the room. Whilst random it was a really funny night. On the way back to the room we called in and asked the price at another hotel, it was £8 a night so we decided to move the next morning.

Once we got back Casson was still going on about the room and I was still laughing about it and then it happened .... he spotted something crawling on the bed which could have been baby cockroaches, not so funny any more was it? We packed up and moved that night. Note to Casson, cheap is not always better!

Guilin was not what we expected, we thought we were heading to the countryside but it was a huge city surrounded by Karst peaks, rivers and lakes. It was still really nice though. On our first full day we headed to Folded Brocade Hill which was a peak you could climb to see really good views of the city.

The following day we went to the reed flute cave, when we got there a man approached us and said it was a 15 minute walk to the entrance or we could go 10 minutes on a bamboo raft for a £1 each. We know that they always lie about times but for a quid each we went for the bamboo raft. We literally did a 5 minute circuit of a lake and got dropped off a 5 minute walk from where we started, it's a good job we've learnt to laugh at the ridiculous scams they have everywhere.

The cave was huge and full of stalactites and stalagmites but we couldn't really take it all in for laughing. It was lit up like Santa's grotto, there was neon lighting everywhere and tour guides using microphones whilst herding people through.

We really wanted to go and see the rice terraces but to do it on our own was a bit of a logistical nightmare so we decided to book a tour which was easier said than done. We speak no Chinese and the tour operator spoke no English but we walked out of his office with a ticket and a pick up time for the following day. We struck lucky though as our tour guide spoke perfect English so he could tell us which way to walk and where to meet. We were taking the mic saying we won't get lost as our guide had a long pole with a flag on it but when we looked around all the guides had an identical flag. At first we thought we were on the wrong tour as we had trainers on and ruc sacks with us and a lot of the women had dresses and high heels on and fancy handbags but no we were on the right tour and that's just the way they roll.

The rice terraces were lovely, we had to take a little golf buggy up to the first platform as the guide wanted us all to stay together at first. We would have preferred to walk, especially as the driver reversed into a fence when he pulled up! Once up there we went off on our own, it was a couple of hours walk and the views were amazing. We followed the directions we were given and ended up right at the top but realised we didn't know if we were meeting the group at the top or if we had to go back down. We ended up following some girls in matching pink t shirts who didn't speak a word of English but we thought we recognised them from our bus, our plan was almost fundamentally flawed when they didn't get on the bus when we did as we could have been following anyone but they did in the end.

On the bus back the guide got out some combs and perfume and started giving it the big sell, it looked like cheap imitation perfume but the Chinese were loving it and they were handing money over by the fistful, we pulled up by the side of the road and the guide collected all his orders from a tuk tuk that was waiting there. Bizarre doesn't even cover it.

We've got another tour booked tomorrow, hope its as good as this one as it was also booked with minimal use of English and maximum use of charades

General points

1) We're back in the danger zone, not only are the mopeds crazy on the roads, they all ride on the pavement so you're not even safe there and to top it off, the electric bikes like to conserve their battery by riding with no lights on ..... at night!

2) The Chinese are mega loud, why speak normally when you can shout?

3) They are shopping crazy and will buy absolutely anything, especially if someone is hyping it up

4) I'm a local celebrity, people keep asking if they can have their picture with me. If China had Facebook I'd have gone viral by now

5) They like to stare A LOT. We've taken to staring back, it seems to throw them

6) We're loving China