Yangshuo has been fab and much needed. Nice to finish China on a high note too. We stayed at Sudder St, a new guesthouse only open for 4 months and whose design is up for some awards. Our room with floor to ceiling glass window opening onto a balcony overlooking rice paddies and fishing ponds, with the ubiquitous karst formations in the background, cost us £12 a night. One of the cheapest rooms we've secured whilst here. The downstairs communal area was a great place to meet other travellers. It also had an outside swimming pool overlooking the fields but given it wasn't exactly warm, we didn't dare to dip in it.
We could join the staff dinners for £1.50 which were fab. Eight or so dishes and twelve people around the big communal table, a great way to get talking to other people. An Italian couple we got talking to donated some coffee sachets so I could even have coffee in bed whilst looking out at the scenery, as the early morning mist cleared. It felt like being in South Africa all over again. Downstairs, fresh coffee was also served and it was only £1- by far the cheapest we'd come across in China. Beer, although resembling water at 2.5% was only 50p and so Sudder Street was an all round excellent place to stay, and our favourite in China! So much so, I didn't want to leave.
We spent the days hiring bikes and cycling around the countryside and climbing up super steep hills to get better vistas. Entry to one was £1.50 and the other was free!!! Stunning scenery, in China, for free!!! Such novelty! You would expect them to be heaving for this very reason but as it involves walking and no cable car is available, they were deadly quiet. Perfect!
We caught the bus to Xingping, an hour away and the location of the picture on the back of a ¥20 banknote. Again you'd expect hoarding to have been erected around it and an entry fee charged to see it but surprisingly, this was also free! Quite bizarre. Xingping was lovely. Still a small town but with lots of little coffee shops and stalls appealing to westerners. It's a shame we didn't have time to stay here for a night or two to explore the surrounding countryside.
One evening we bought tickets for the Yangshou impressions light show, directed by the guy who directed the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. It takes place in an open air theatre on the Li River, surrounded by the karst formations. Six hundred local people take part in it so it was quite impressive. Definitely busier than the Naxi orchestra, the Sichuan opera and the Beijing acrobatic show....put together, plus an extra 1800 or so people! The girl next to us (Chinese) did not stop taking photos with her selfie stick and on several occasions tried to surreptitiously take photos of us. We're used to it now and kept hiding our faces. At the start of the show over the PA system they announce the do's and don'ts. Firstly....., secondly....., sixthly......, seventhly..... By this point the seven westerners sat around us started laughing and exclaimed.....'eighthly'. Sure enough that's exactly what the announcer said. These rules were then announced in Chinese. I think maybe people switched off at rule number four because they ignored the request not to smoke and not to get up and leave the performance before it finished. By the end, about a quarter of Chinese tourists had got up and gone in a mist of cigarette smoke they left lingering around.
Yangshou with its lack of cable cars and tourist groups, nice accommodation and gorgeous scenery, for free, has definitely been our favourite place in China.
Now we're in the international airport in Nanning, ready to head off to sunnier climes, albeit the weather forcast shows thunder storms.
Before leaving the hostel this morning we had a look through the new edition of the China Lonely Planet. The five hour walk from Daizhai to Ping'an at the Longji rice terraces now says that whilst it's highly recommended, you should hire a local guide as the signage is non existent! Yep, we can second that!! At the time Tony had said he was going to write to LP to say that their write up saying it was well signed was totally inaccurate. I guess he now doesn't have to!
We caught the shuttle bus to the airport, which wasn't easy to determine if we were catching the right bus or how to purchase tickets. Luckily as I was about to delete Plecko, my Chinese dictionary app last night, Tony had suggested it may be a bit premature and I should wait until we'd left China. Thankfully I listened as it was to prove quite useful!
We arrived at the airport at 11.50, our flight is at 2.30. We got towards the check in desk and our flight number showed as departing at 1pm with boarding closing at 12.30, cue mass panic. We had to queue and I was convinced we would miss the flight. Once we get to the front we tried to ask the check in girl what time the flight was leaving but she couldn't answer due to us not speaking Chinese and her not speaking English. She called over her colleague and between them tell us maybe flight is delayed and maybe leave at 2.30pm. Feeling confused as the check in boards all say it's leaving at 1pm, we forgo Starbucks and the opportunity to spend our last yuan, and rush through two lots of security and immigration. We get through the last security check to see the boards now say flight is delayed and is leaving at 2.30pm. Not delayed according to our email confirmation received when we booked the flight 6 days ago!! Unfortunately there is nothing to spend our money on, airside.
We've also discovered that on our flight is a tour group of 180 Chinese tourists all heading to Phuket! Not so easy to escape the tour groups, pushing, shoving, snotting and phlegming on the floor as I thought! We are however staying up in the hills overlooking Kata which has a quiet little beach, at a small hotel that can't accommodate flag waving tour groups!
Fingers x the bags arrive. We've both packed swimwear, sunglasses, suncream and flip flops in our hand luggage just in case!

The bags arrived and we were super quick getting through the airport. As we were the only westerners and the only ones not part of a tour group, we walked straight through immigration whilst the Chinese all waited for their tour guide to process their visas. The bags were straight off and we were outside looking for our pre arranged taxi twenty minutes before our flight was even meant to land.
It was quite a shock to see so many westerners and so much signage in English when we got outside. I'm glad we are staying up in the hills. I think it's going to take a few hours to 'acclimatise'! We will know what we are ordering for dinner and will actually be able to converse far more easily. It's so nice too to see blue skies and palm trees. What doesn't appeal, and is the reason I'd generally not consider Phuket as a holiday destination, is the dancing elephant shows and dolphin shows, not to mention the 'ping pong' bars on Patong. We will definitely be staying away from that area.
Hopefully we will arrive at Boomerang Village Resort soon- not very Thai sounding is it!? The traffic is horrendous.