Ni Hao

The train station last night was a great experience and provided us with 2 hours entertainment because as usual we were early!!!!

We spent 2 hours trying to decipher Chinese writing and which train was ours and the platform we needed to catch it from. It turns out that we needn't have bothered as a lady with a large megaphone sorted us out with a swift "HELLO YOU, NUMBER 3" and at that moment we left our comfy leather chairs behind and joined the masses heading for train T38 to Guilin.

The thing about travelling is you should always prepare yourself to be amazed and last night was no different as we climbed the steps to the platform there was a car driving down the platform, or it was at least trying it's best among 2000 people!!!

We escaped into coach 10 and found refuge in our soft sleeper cabin away form the noise and true to form at exactly 19:52 the train pulled out of the station and we pulled ourselves from our bed and went to the bar!!!!

Luckily when we returned a couple of hours later we found that no one was sharing our 4 berth cabin for the time being which was a bonus as we managed to get straight to sleep being gently rocked by the train. The down side of overnight train travel is it usually involves an early morning and today was no different and at 7am we had disembarked and had been collected by our hostel guy.

Jerry was a fast worker and within 20 minutes of arriving we had booked 2 trips and had him trying to find trains and flights to Chengdu!!!!

We both decided to head out and see some sights rather than sleep and we took the 25 minute walk to Seven Star Scenic Area for a look around. Esentailly it is a big park with caves, waterfalls, chinese people exercising and naughty monkeys. Following the map we ended up at Camel Hill, which actually looked like a camel and is weird but cool then came the blunder of the day due to being tired I think!!!! As soon as we entered the amazing stone museum (which believe it or not was interesting) we were fighting a losing battle the lady showed us around and some of the pieces were amazing but we knew there was a sales pitch coming at the end.

It turns out Bill Clinton had visited and bought something here and if it's good enough for my mate Bill it's good enough for us, although he would have spent more than we did. After several cups of tea and looking at lots of different stones including Fluorite that never stops glowing, which I don't think is a good thing we bought ourselves 4 season stones that are cut from 2.2 million year old stone that can only be found here in Guilin.The pigmentation is unusual and forms great pictures, but they are like plants and need watering to keep them from drying out!!!!

Once we had drank our weight in tea it was onto Seven Star Cave which is a 500m underground cave made from limestone that is lit up all different colours and pretty impressive even when you get the whole commentary in Chinese while sprinting through at light speed!!!!

The resident park monkeys made a showing and tried stealing someones bag of food till a guy tried throwing rocks at them. By now our bodies were saying have a rest so we went back for a quick rest before heading out for the evening entertainment.

Our cab driver (who looked like he had not dressed himself and just woke up) took us down to the river to board a boat to watch the cormorant fishing, we were both looking forward to this since seeing it on the TV. It is man and bird working together to both get what they want and that is fish.The fishermen loosely tie string around the birds necks so when they catch fish they can't swallow them and the birds dive and catch fish for them. Once they have enough fish the fishermen let the birds have their fill of fish and the birds stay with them as they know what the reward will be. It is truly amazing to watch in the dark all by tilley lamp light, as cormorants are not waterproofed they have to take rest breaks to dry their wings before diving again.The whole spectacle was brilliant to watch and really topped our day off perfectly.

Ended our evening by the lake then had an excellent chinese meal at the 2nd restaurant we chose as the first left us sat for 20 minutes so we went next door and had a feast for 6 quid.

Lots of Love

M & M

xx