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 for our Visa application. They would be delivered to the Wada Hostel. Now, it took a little while for the girl behind the counter to realise what we were asking her ("Have our train tickets been delivered?"
"Huh?")
But, voila, our tickets were indeed waiting for us. We then tried to ask about which station we needed to go to in order to get to Guangzhou East - her english was no where near as good as Julie's, so we headed to Guilin Railway Station (yes, that's the one where we should have arrived at! It too, has its own poxy vultures). Whilst there it was equally confusing and the cashier's English left much to be desired. We worked out we couldn't get tickets to Guangzhou East from Guilin, only to Guangzhou South.  From Guilin to Guangzhou South would take 3 hours on the fast train, then two metro changes - 17 minutes and 34 minutes long -  before we could board our non refundable/exchangeable train from Guangzhou East to Hong Kong at 14:04! It would be a tight squeeze travelling! And stressful to boot. Overwhelmed by the last 24 hours I sat on the station floor to stop my head from spinning. I then remembered the poster about the Hong Kong sleeper bus from the hostel. Surely that's simpler?
Back to the hostel we learnt the bus leaves from Yangshou - Wada has a sister hostel there. We could get to that hostel via the River Li Bamboo ride. Cool! Both were arranged and booked.

We walked a little more around Guilin, there are a lot more 125cc petrol bikes than in the rest of China. Still lots of  electric scooters, but more small motorbikes. The air is cleaner and clearer. You can see karst hills and mountains surrounding the city, no matter which way you look. A much better alternative to skyscrapers. It's is not as clean as other Chinese cities. More litter everywhere and not as many street sweepers as before. It is also consitant with being a tripping hazard, as is all of China. Broken pavement, wires, holes, poles sticking out the ground etc.
The weather was the hottest we had it in China. A temprature gage in a shop read 39°c.
Over to the mall, got a sweet bun and mango juice.

Outside was a very thin/starved horse, pulling a Cinderella type coach for customers.
We ate dinner at the hostel.. Kung Po Chicken and Orange Pork...played pool. During one of our games Frank spotted a guy running in and out with the guitars. While getting some drinks Frank followed him. We were soon playing music with the Chinese chap called Yao Ping. Both he and Frank on guitars and me on a drum - sort of. Yao Ping had a brilliant interpreter app on his phone which helped us have a gentle conversation. Midnight and bedtime, pity, we could've stayed up all night.

Sunday20th
In the morning another hearty museli and fruit breakfast was had. Our new friend Yao Ping hustled in and handed us some baby mangos and sat with us.
"Where are u goin to play today?" He asked (via his app).
"The zoo."
He wished us well and handed us some Melon before leaving. Seeing as we booked the bamboo ride we thought the zoo would be the cheapest/interesting thing to do next and there were pandas there! Wada hostel can buy you an e-ticket and you get money off, they give you a code to present at the kiosk. We were told to get the number 10 bus - bus station is opposite our hostel luckily. We followed the route on the 'maps me' app. A recommendation from other hostel dwellers. It brought us to a gate but not the zoo, it was for another park. We had to walk 20 minutes in the other direction. Got to that gate, no further still to a gate only for the zoo. Stuck on a roadside corner we asked a Chinese man who pointed back the way we came. We then asked a girl who via her phone and very sweetly was able to bring us within a few metres. All we had to do was cross the road. We thanked her very much and waved goodbye. Over the road the entrance wasn't obvious and our app was still ushering us to walk further along. So more back and forth. Eventually we found the zoo entrance. Then the fun started.
We showed the person at the first kiosk our e-ticket code - who pointed to another kiosk. We showed them - they pointed to a kiosk behind us. We showed them - they pointed to a different kiosk (seeing a pattern here eh?). To that kiosk who pointed us to the kiosk next to the first one we tried. I'm sure it was great fun for them watching us. So we showed them the code.
"That not work."
What!? We tried to explain that our hostel booked it. It must work.
"You have to make a call." (Why do people in China keep saying that?)
So we tried to explain the complications with our phones and that she would have to call. But she wouldn't have that. So I dialed the hostel number in front of her and put it on loud speaker. Same call baring message came. She then got me to dial with a number left out... same result. This was done twice more before she was convinced we really couldn't call our hostel and she would have to inconvenience herself to do it. Long story short, the zoo doesn't recognise these tickets anymore we would have buy the tickets there, no discount, and get our money back at the hostel. Cash was just being handed over  when she then said,
"There are no pandas today"...

So that was a lovely day out then.

Back outside a minute later we roared laughing, because quite frankly, I think we would've screamed. We walked back through Guilin to Wada via our number 10 bus route. That was all the excitement we could take.

Off to Yangshuo on Monday... we hope!