After leaving the tropical paradise of Yangshuo (although it wasn't that tropical in the end, it rained solidly for the last three days!) we took the sleeper bus to Guangzhou. It was a really weird experience.... 7 beds long, 3 beds wide and 2 beds high.... I never realised that many people could fit on a bus! Our "beds" was surpisingly comfy but not much sleep was had due to the craziness of the chinese bus driver. Corners, round tight roads, at a high speeds on practically two wheels.....whilst overtaking! We arrived in the early hours of the morning and tried to walk to the train station. Not realising how far it was we got in a taxi. Another random experience... not the driving this time but the taxi driver himself. He got on his mobile (not a rare occurance whilst driving in China) and then promptly passed the phone to Jon! We couldn't quite figure it all out, but the man on the end of the phone was asking us where we were going and did we need train tickets! We divulged no information and I felt a little relieved when we arrived at the train station. A short wait and a quick metro ride later and we found ourselves on Shamian Island.... it's a shame our hostel was on the other side of the water!

Having liked what we saw on Shamian we went back the next day to explore. It would have been lovely except it was overrun with loud American couples who all had Chinese babies.... is this the latest trend?! An expensive and not great meal later I was positively disappointed with Shamian but it redeemed itself with the local fishermen who were by the murky waters and highly entertaining.

Guangzhuo as a funny city.... it's close to hong Kong so is not as traditionally Chinese as other cities yet it's still China. To get over this we made friends with two Hong Kong boys who gave us tips on Hong Kong, played cards with us and treated us to Oyster's and Muscles cooked on the BBQ at midnight.... they were delicious! We also met up with Kevin, the boy who we shared our bunk with on the Yangzte River Cruise. It was lovely to see him and catch up. We have invited him to England when he has finished uni!

When it stopped raining we ventured out the next day to Yuexiu Park- set in 75 hectures of grass and woods and winding paths that seem to take you in circles! It holds the statue of the 5 Ram's.... some famous ram's that came from the sky to save the people of Guangzhuo from famine. We had our obligatory picture at the statue and them climbed up to San Yet Sun's memorial.... well Jon climbed.... I admired the view from the bottom of the steps! (I hasten to add I did walk up the hill to the bottom of the steps... I'm not that lazy!)

We left Guangzhuo to make our way to Hong Kong on the bus but that's another blog story.......