Yangshuo Day 9

I had a couple of meat filled dough dumplings for breakfast, which I ate down by the river. They really are quite tasty, filling, and for Y1 each, good value.

Returning to the hostel, I met Ada using the internet and we decided to go and hire a couple of bikes together. At least once we had managed to buy here some medicine for her alarming chest infection! I was impressed that she wanted to be so active.

We cycled out of town along the Yulong again and then parted ways. I headed toward the Moon Hill (a big hill with a nearly perfect semicircle of rock missing from its peak, giving a lovely arch) and I directed Ada toward the Dragon Bridge. I somehow missed the entrance to the path and cycled miles around the foot of the hill before going back and kicking myself. I was hounded by a couple of old ladies who proceeded to follow me for most of the way up the hundreds and hundreds of steps to the base of the 'moon'. Just through there I spotted a sign saying 'passengers no entry'. A fairly average example of Chinglish, but also the marker for the path to the summit. I had been told by others to ignore the sign and keep going!

The top normally gives unbelievable views of the surrounding Karst mountains, though today it was cloudy and a tad dissappointing. I had planned to take a panoramic picture, but the visability was too poor :-( Just a day earlier would have been stunning :-(On the top there is a metal pole about 5 metres tall, with rungs sticking out to allow you to climb it. It felt a little strange, but I went for it and tried to take pictures of myself from the top!

On the way down the hill I bumped into Elisa and decided to go back up to the moon with her. We spent the afternoon together, cycling slowly back to town and stopping to take the odd well chosen photo. She stopped on the outskirts of town having spotted some of the strange and wonderful fruit she had been raving about the previous evening. She bought a few and handed me one; a purple ball shaped thing that you squeeze to split open and then gorge on the soft white flesh inside that looks like cloves of garlic. It was strange.....but good.

That evening the Chilean Danilo, who spoke good Chinese, took us all out to a local style restaurant where they have all the food layed out on a stall and you just choose what you want and they cook it up in front of you. It was very cheap, and very good. Some of the best genuine Chinese food I had had.

We headed back and, as the others went up to the noisy bar, I used the net to plan my journey the next day and take down as much info about directions etc as I could. I snuck into bed and let the rest of them get drunk without me. They woke me up at 3.00 for a little while, but I was just happy I chose not to join them! I had to be up early to move city.