Day Twenty-Three
On the train again heading for Yangshuo
A lazy start to the day. I had woke up to the feel of Andy's hand rocking my back. The swine I could have easily fitted in a few more hours although I did manage 12 hours already. It was only 10am time to get up & attempt the toilet - I think I would have rather stayed in bed. The extremely small narrow train beds are surprisingly comfortable.
Breakfast on the go we had cucumbers, bananas, kiwis & more chocolate & cups of weird hot chocolate/coffee. It wasn't long before we had delved into the biscuits too. Being wide awake I turned & watched out the window as the train passed by lots of different places. We didn't have a clue where about or how far from Guilin train station we were.
To occupy ourselves we began talking to Cecelia again. We chatted for hours about endless silly things. After another mini snooze & another pot noodle we began to entertain the lovely child. I was trying to teach her old children's games that I played as a little girl but Andy was playing rough games & making her jump about all over the train carriage. We have to admit that for the whole journey the little girl was not a problem or a nuisance in fact she had made the journey more exciting for us.
The time went by & 4pm had passed & we started to have doubts about where we should get off because even though the train stops the shout outs are in Chinese but luckily Cecelia the Chinese lady was getting off the same stop as us & said she would help us find our way. To further pass the time I decided to colour in & draw with the little girl. She was good as gold & done everything her mum told her. The train conductor lady came & passed us our tickets back so we could get ready to get off. We pulled our big bags down & prepared them ready to throw on our backs when the train stopped. As the little girl was so good & she was funny & made us laugh we gave her ¥10 (£1) to get herself an ice-cream!
I went & sat outside in the carriage corridor by the window to get some air. The train has got these little pull down chairs on the opposite side of the cabin doors so I rested my legs & perched my bum. I felt a little tap & tug on my arm & next minute the little girl had climbed on my knee & was sitting there pointing happily out of the window.
Time to get off the train. We quickly put our rucksacks on our backs & marched off the train. We began to follow the Chinese lady Cecelia but there was no way we could lose her because her little girl had tight hold of my hand & wouldn't let go. Walking further to the exit the little girl let go of my hand & raced towards her dad, it was such a cute sight. It was now time to try & find the bus to Yangshuo. We headed further away from the train station & on to the main street where there was lots of coaches & buses but we never had a clue of what was going where. We sat on some steps & out came the lonely planet book & some leaflets but none mentioned what number bus we should take. We walked back to where the coaches where parked & a lady was shouting Yangshuo so we bartered a price for the coach & we jumped on.
This was going to be a fun journey, we had read that it was going to take 1.5 hours to get from Guilin to Yangshuo. On the bus & on opposite seats across the aisles the bus pulled away from the station. There was a small tv with a small screen at the front of the coach & a stupid Chinese movie started to play so I began watching that as Andy gazed out of the window. The bus was passing slowly down dusty roads & through villages until next minute we saw beautiful mountains that were all lit up. We had pulled in to the bus station & jumped off the bus. With our bags on our backs once again, how the hell are we going to find the hostel as Andy had lost the small piece of paper with the address & details on it! Better still the details were written in Chinese so people could easily help us - now we were stuck with no clue at all!!!
We walked around by the bus station trying to suss out what to do for the best. We found an Internet cafe so at least we could try & find the address & possibly a telephone number. Whoopie we got the details & the boy on the desk at the cafe tried to direct us to where we needed to go. He wrote the details of the hostel & the address in Chinese so if we asked anyone at least they should know as it was in their language. It didn't seem too far on the map we had, so we decided to walk. We walked around for about half an hour & we were still none the wiser. It was useless asking anybody because we were getting pointed in different directions & they still couldn't even tell us from the directions wrote in Chinese. Andy took us in to another near by hotel to ask the receptionist as that had worked for us in the past. He was right, we finally got pointed in the right direction & we got proper directions to the hostel.
Off we marched out of the hotel & headed towards the busiest street in town (West Street) which we had dreaded from the start. Pushing our way through the crowds & up this street that had loud bars many shops & many annoying street sellers. We we're extremely happy to see McDonalds & KFC & other normal western looking places. Down West Street was lots of western people - it was nice to see big groups of westerners! Further & further up the street we were asking locals for the lane we needed but scarily they didn't have a clue - please say we were on the right track. We asked a young girl who was sitting on a stool & she said she didn't have a clue as she was a fellow traveller but she would get someone to help. That's when she grabbed a young lad & spoke to him in Chinese an he eventually took us to the lane & pointed up this semi-lit alley way. Finally we had arrived at the hostel, to which I complained about there not being anything sign posted.
We sorted out checking in & by this time is was at least 8pm & we had been on the move for 30 hours. Shattered but it was good fun! We settled in to our nice room. It was a private room so we had our own shower & toilet (a western toilet), a nice big double bed & the room was spacious - everything seemed perfect till we jumped on the bed. Oh my god - we nearly broke every limb. The bed looked lovely with a nice fluffy quilt but it was just wood no mattress, in fact the mattress was wood - ouch!!!
We needed to find someone to eat as we were starving. We headed out of the hostel & on the to West Street. We explored for a little while & checked out many restaurants to eat. We found a nice little pizza place but we wanted something quick so we headed for McDonalds with a comprise of getting something small & then getting a takeaway pizza. 2 large Big Mac meals & meat pizza later we were satisfied hahaha & we headed back to the hostel for a well needed sleep.
Lying in bed & trying to get to sleep on wood was proving difficult & uncomfortable so we had a plan. Out came our sleeping bags & the extra quilt that was stored in the cupboard in the room. Time to conjure up a makeshift mattress - this should be fun. We folded the tatty cupboard quilt in half & threw that on the pasting board (mattress), on top was the sheet & then the proper bed quilt on top of that. Time to get in our sleeping bags & kip in them on top of all the quilts & sheet - our plan had succeeded. The makeshift mattress was better than nothing so we were happy enough but it was hysterical looking at each other sleeping like caterpillars in our cocoons! Just imagine if the maid walked in.
Tomorrow we can see Yangshuo in the daylight.........