Weds 23rd - Thur 24th Our sleeper bus (double decked coach) turned up at 8:35 (so not early then) it parked in the road so we had to hustle and get on with our backpacks - no room underneath. I climbed up first, then was promptly stopped and told to take my trainers off - a hard job with a full pack and small bags on in a narrow space. I glanced up and saw the bus was excruciatingly narrow, even for me. I shuffled frustratingly along and struggled to get to an e...

Tue 22nd Spent the day paddling in and chilling by the River Li, watching the tourist boats tip in and out and an old man with a Cormarent pose for their photos for money. We then walked around Yangshuo some more. Another purpose made tourist town. Nice though. Cobbled streets, lots of shops and restaurants, cafés, hotels and hostels.  Found a nice park, where the usual karaoke, Tai Chi, cards games and dancing were taking place. Again, small fair ground ride...

Mon 21st We were dropped off in Yanshuo and arranged with Dan and Lou to meet up at a place called 'The Mojo Bar' - the one bar showing up on 'mapsme'. However, we were dropped off on the wrong road and not at the regular bus stop. Not that we knew that either. Looking at our map from the hostel and 'mapsme', the road curved just the same (it ran parallel with the next/ correct road half a mile away). So we ended up walking in 35°C, with 12 - 17 kg backpacks on...

Mon 21st On the back of a 20 Yaun note you'll see a picture of karst mountians along a river. The river is the River Li. We left Guilin, with full backpacks and a Yangshuo map in hand, for our River Li Cruise. We asked the guy on reception to bring us to the correct bus stop - which he did, along with four Americans from North Carolina ... three girls - one blonde, one short dark hair, one with Indian/Asian heritage and the guy with them was American-Chinese wh...

Saturday 19th Breakfast in the hostel; a very large portion of museli with fruit and eggs on toast for Frank. With tea and coffee. I spotted a small yellow lizard on the window ledge too. Unfortunately the stress of the night before spilled over into the following morning. We had to arrange our final train journey to Hong Kong. Back in March we had booked tickets from Guangzhou East ('near' Guilin) to Hong Kong departing at 14:04, to get us out of China just fo...