Today was Liam's birthday, the big 2-2, but not particularly eventful unfortunately. We were scheduled to spend the day travelling back to Guilin to pick up our rucksacks, via various modes of transport, followed by another overnight train to Hong Kong.

The weather had cleared up quite significantly overnight, which meant that during breakfast we could see right across the valley, and realised that actually we were very high up! A few of us left earlier than the others to do a bit of shopping along the market stalls down towards the bus station, and we all enjoyed most probably the last bit of reasonable haggling we would find in China. We knew Hong Kong would be more expensive, so we made the most of it and bought LOADS. The locally made chilli paste in jam jars went down particularly well with fire-mouthed Christina and Rosie.

Buses and buses and buses later, we arrived in Guilin, possibly the least tourist-friendly place in the whole of China. There was absolutely nothing to do, except spend a couple of hours in a restaurant (which Bobo later told us was a bad idea to go to) which seemed to use every single edible part of an animal in its dishes. We both had duck, which was just the gristle, neck fat, and strange chewy paste which we're still not sure what it was. John's 'Yemen style noodles' contained not only chicken meat, but chicken ankle, head, and foot, still with the scaly skin on - which Alastair tried, and failed, to eat. Can't knock him for his effort, but no-one else in their right minds would have put that near their mouths! We bought a ton of food from a nearby supermarket and then prepared ourselves for the overnight train journey - one much later than the rest, in a nicer, faster train.