Saturday 11th June - Guilin. So much for getting away from the heat of Hong Kong - Guilin is just as hot! We're only spending a couple of days here as the main attraction of this region is the nearby town of Yangshuo. So today we just sorted out how we were going to get there and had a bit of a wander around Guilin town.

The Backstreet Youth Hostel is nice enough. It's quite small so it doesn't offer the range of day trips and meals that we've seen elsewhere, but it's friendly and clean.

Sunday 12th June - Dragon's Back Rice Terraces. These are the famous terraces that feature in pretty much every rice terrace photo of China. We went on a massive coach full of Chinese tourists, so our guide had to do a bilingual tour. We got the feeling we missed out a bit though as he'd jabber away in Chinese for ages and then our translation was "we'll be there in ten minutes." The first stop was at Longsheng, famous for the Yao minority group and the long-hair women. Traditionally, these women never cut their hair, so by the time they are in their thirties their hair is over six feet long. They put on a show where they sing traditional songs and bring round samples of local food. They also let down their hair to show how long it is and then show how they wrap it around their heads.

After lunch we went to the rice terraces. We went at the wrong time of year though, and the rice hadn't started to sprout so it didn't look as lush as it does in brochures. After an hour's walk through the terraces and villages you get to a couple of viewing areas above the terraces. The terraces run for miles, and it's quite a sight.

That evening, when we went for dinner, we were accosted by a Chinese man. We're well used to this, the old "hello, where are you from, please come to my shop/restaurant/tea house" where they will inevitably try and rip us off. So we chatted to him warily and made it clear we knew where we were going and we weren't deviating from this. He offered to show us where the restaurant was so we followed him, knowing roughly were the restaurant was so we'd know if he was leading us astray. He took us to the restaurant, but apparently it had closed down and was now a pharmacy. Fortunately he knew of another restaurant. Nervously we followed him, wondering what scam we were being led through. He sat us down in the restaurant, which from a glance at the menu looked quite cheap. We assumed he was going to order some 'local' food for us to try which would turn out to cost a fortune at the end of the meal, but he sat us down, called the waitress over and bid us farewell. Hmm, no scam so far. After we had eaten we anticipated him waiting outside to take us to a bar or something, but there was no sign of him. It turns out, he was just being nice and helpful! It goes to show how little we've seen of that side of the Chinese.

Monday 13th June - Guilin to Yangshuo by bamboo raft. Well, mostly-plastic raft would be more fitting. I think the only bamboo on the raft was the poles holding the awning up. This is a very popular thing to do here. The Li river meanders slowly through spectacular scenery, and you get to sit back on a garden bench and watch it drift by. There isn't much development along the river either, so you can pass through great chunks of it without seeing any buildings. Giant, tree-covered karsts (pointy, rock hills) jut out behind the tree-lined river and it almost looks prehistoric at times. It takes a couple of hours to get from Guilin to Xingping like this, then it's various buses to Yangshuo.

Yangshuo is beautiful, as it is nestled in amongst several karsts. Every time you look up, or peek down an alley way, there's a karst towering above you.

We're staying at Yangshuo Culture House, which is more of a guest house than a hostel. There's no bar or officially organised trips like in other places, but three meals a day are included in the price. We were lured here by the promise of lessons in taichi, Chinese cooking mahjong and painting. These turn out to be taught by Mr Wei, the owner, rather than formal lessons. The cooking class apparently consists of standing in the kitchen whilst his wife cooks dinner! The evening meal is really good though - plates and plates of Chinese food. I think they just keep bringing food out till we leave! It's really sociable as well, as all the guests sit down together. In other hostels, where food is served 24 hours a day, people just come and go all day long and you don't regularly meet up every day.

Tuesday 14th June - walked around Yangshuo. There's a lot you can do around here so we wandered around town to check out the various bicycle hire places and see what was on offer. Yangshuo is much like any other Chinese city, but the tourist streets are quite nice. There are loads of restaurants, coffee shops and souvenir shops, but they don't hassle you too much so browsing was quite fun.

Wednesday 15th June - Yangshuo again. We started the day with a tai chi session with the hostel owner, Mr Wei, and a few of the other guests. It was quite nice! he took us through some warm-up exercises and stretches before showing us some positions, all the time explaining the meaning behind it all. It was quite wet and rainy today so we decided against hiring bikes and just went for a walk into the countryside.

Thursday 16th June - cycle to Moon Hill. One of the many cycleable sights around town, Moon Hill is a karst with a large, round, Moon-shaped hole at the top. What we didn't realise until we went there was you could actually walk up and stand in the circle, which gave great views. The cycle was nice but it was all along roads. After the hill we cycled off to the nearby town of Fuli. This route took us off the roads and down dirt tracks, through rice fields and tiny ramshackle villages. It really felt like we were off exploring and having an adventure, but the fact that all the children yelled "hallo!" at us when we went by and people where charging for photos of water buffaloes were constant reminders that a lot of tourist must pass this way.

Unfortunately we didn't manage to find the right track to Fuli and ended back in town. Fortunately we got back to Yangshuo and handed our bikes back just seconds before a massive rainstorm started!

In the evening we had a mahjong lesson with Mr Wei. It turns out it's not as complicated as we thought! It was a lot of fun as several other guests played as well.

Friday 17th June - cycled to Fuli. Tai chi in the morning again. Then we finally made it to Fuli. However, it took a lot of asking villagers for directions and getting lost. We even had to find a ferry to take us and our bikes across the river, but we made it! We then thought we'd be very lazy and popped the bikes on a bamboo raft and sailed back up the river. Due to heavy rains the river was flowing very fast and it ended up taking us twice as long to get back than if we'd just cycled!

In the evening we had a calligraphy lesson with Mr. Wei. This was hard! We had rice paper and proper brushes and ink, and Mr Wei just went through a few of the strokes and then built these up into Chinese characters. Applying the right pressure, making the little flicks at the start of strokes and getting the thickness of the lines right seemed impossible!

Saturday 18th June - back to Guilin, then an overnight train to Shanghai. Our time in China is coming to an end now so we're going full circle and finishing our time here in Shanghai. But first, a 20 hour train trip!

Bye!
Lindsay and Chris