After the worst journey ever, we finally made it our hostel in Guilin. The Backstreet youth hostel was nice and right in the middle of the shopping district near to the river so we were im pressed..until (after having no sleep the night before) we decided to have an afternoon nap and discovered we had the hardest beds in China, and no joke you could knock on the matress and it would sound like a door.

Our first day was spent chilling out, but on the night went to the Lijang dreamlike theatre to see the acrobatics show, which was amazing. After looking like tramps for the past 3 weeks we decided to get out our posh clothes (consisting of a shirt for Si and a dress for Becky) I even put on make up and earings, when we got there though our bubble was burst, as all the Chinese that had come to see it were in their usual mishmash of pyjama's and workwear! The acrobatic stunts were incredible hanging from the cieling by a rope tied round their necks, jumping and dancing, and they did tricks with swords, umbrella's, hats, and span around in cage things...which was cool as we were right at the front. Si even got his picture taken with star.

The following day we set out to the Longji rice terraces. The bus came and collected us really early and it was quite a drive. a child threw up which smelt lovely, then the mother of said child threw milk all over the floor and under our seats! When someone pointed this out to them they just shrugged and it was only when I pointed it out to the driver that they made them mop it up! Our first stop was the village of long haored women (sorry don't know the name!!) Where we got to walk round and watch then do a dance and some singing. They also did a traditional wedding ceremony and got three members of the audience up to helo them, 2 Chinese one westerner. During the ceremony there is lots of bum pinching (as this is how they show love!) and an exchange of gifts, right at the end they also had to exchange a song for each other. There was only one song the westerner could sing...the worst rendition of "I will always love you" in the world. They also passed round some tea which tasted like bovril with bits of rice floating around in it, nice! Then they took their hair down, they only cut it twice in their life time, once when they turned 16, and again when they get married. According to our guide it also smells really bad in summer so we tried not to get too close. On the way out they gave you a shot of alcohol and then run through a load of them as they pinch your bum! After this we went on to the rice terrace which were along a windy mountain road on a little mini bus that im sure was going too fast! First it was lunch and we had a nice meal, of bamboo rice and pork and cashew nits (with 10 whole garlic cloves in there just for good measure!) We also had our first encounter with bean stick...the only vegetavle in the world that i hate and Si likes! (bean stick is actually bean stalk, and is rubbery salty white with a big leaf on the end) After this we began our hike to the top, viewing point number 2, which was quite a trek but the views were amazing and well worth it, we reccomend it to anyone thats going to China as a must do.

The following day was the Li river cruise, we had three choices a private speedboat, an english tour or a Chinese boat. We went for the engish speaking tour, and this was where we met Dominic. And this was the beginning of team Panda. Our tour guide gave us stickers with a panda on them and told us we were the panda group yey! (See the pic of Si with his girly panda sticker!!!) We told Dominic the story of the man in Chengdu doing the international sign for panda (again see the pic!) and that was it team panda was formed. All day we were good little panda's (even though they ripped us off for another tour round Shangri-la - dont do it if your going there! Its like a boat trip Drayton Manor - not worth it) you see some men in loin cloths dancing and some women weaving, and thats about it, but we laughed all the way through. And the scenery of the li river rivalled the threee gorges, if they werent more impressive. They point out loads of little things on the way that are supposed to look like something (i.e the husband rock - a woman holding a baby waiting for her husband to come home, of the 9 horses fresco) we could't really see anything apart from cat rock..whcih wasnt somethng they pointed out, obviously they'd missed it cus it was the only one that was blindingly obvious to all three of us! We also met Paul from New York who we met later on for a drink when we got home, but first the Tea ceremony. In China all tours have to go to a governemt sponsored store and this time it was the tea factory. Normally you go in, have a 3 min talk then go outside again...this one was different it waent on forever!!! Also in our group were 4 Japanese women and the lady giving us the demonsatraion could speak Japanese so thats what she spoke, saying reeeeeeally long sentences for the Japanese women to translate into 2 words so i'm sure we missed loads! Then ther was the 50 thimbles of tea and the ettiquette that goes with it, and some bizzare sweets. It went on for hour with us, Paul and Dominic not having a clue whats going on!

On our final day before we left for Hong Kong we rented bikes and went for a ride to the reed flute cave with Dominic. As we were cycling along we met a random Chinee woman and her Brazillian friend (Fernando) who were also going there so we just followed them. Walking round the cave was impressive altough all in Chinese so while he was pointing out the rock called The centipede and the magic mirror??? and expalining it and the Chinese were all having a good giggle we had no idea what was going on! When we got back outside we decided to rest for a minute but Fernando had to rush off, when we asked where he was going, the blunt answer came "i'm gonna go eat some dog!"

we spent the rest of the day cycling along the river and taking pics of team panda together. Our final evening was spent at Elephant trunk hill which again as you can see by the pictures was amazing but pretty self explanatory! We would also like to thank Dominic for letting us use his shower as we had been cycling all day and had given up our room.

And then it was off to Hong Kong and hopefully a better train journey than last time!