I got to Guilin pretty late in the day, so had a meander round town and a pretty quiet one in the hostel. Next day I got up to catch a bus that took me to Li River, where we'd hop on our bamboo raft to Yangshuo. There wasn't actually any bamboo on board - just PVC - but was a nice trip spent with a Chinese girl and her parents. After the scenic journey they offer you another tour down the 'best part' of the river, on actual bamboo. We had a bit of time before that and so went and checked into the hostel where I met Sapphire, a Chinese girl climbing the hills in Yangshuo by day, and cracking out belly dancing and playing with fire in street performances by night. When I got to the bamboo raft the Chinese lady had asked to partner me so we cruised down the river trying to add a bit of momentum into the conversation. She looked about 21 and told me she had a 14 year old son. So either she was breastfeeding at 8 or looked a lot younger than she was. Turns out it's the latter and she's 41. Her parents carried on getting snaps of me at any given opportunity, and based on their reaction, I'm in the family album.

Later on I went back and had a meal with Sapphire and then this Ukranian girl from our room joined. Sapphire said she was allergic to alcohol so we didn't go out out in Yangshuo, but at night the place transforms into the kind of thing you'd expect to see in Dixie TV!

Next day I rented out a mountain bike and firstly went to the toursity areas, climbing Moon Hill and going in the Cold Water Cave but unfortunately the camera died mid-cave. I then went out into some really rural villages and after a few hours of going deeper into the unknown and struggling to get any info re my whereabouts from the locals I finally found myself and got back on track. I went back to Guilin that evening, had a mellow one and played some pool in the hostel and got on the Longji rice terrace tour for the next day. Was a really good one, the tour didn't cater much for the English speakers on board but was quite a scene nonetheless!