Got to Yangshou and felt right at home..its the chinese tourist resort of the south mid west, alot like Tenby!! There are alot of shops, western food places, night clubs and lots of organisd adventure activities!! Our hotel was called 'faulty towers'....it was a bit rough on the edges but no bugs or nasty surprises!! After getting a bit of a shopping head in Shanghai i went in scout of a nice bag...here there are alot of knock offs but the sellers don't hide their goods behind closed doors...ended buying a chloe bag (i know who'll be smilling at that one!!).

In the afternoon went on a boat cruise on the Li River, we had a local guide Sally (don't know if iv mentioned but most chinses people working in tourism have an english name). Had another discusion about the differences between growing up in east and west...its fashionable and attractive for a woman to be pale (it means she's not working class and works on the land) so women wear these strange pull on sleeves...i tried Sally's on and one of the girls has got a great pic of me trying them on so i'll see if i can get it downloaded. Again a rainy day but none the less we got to see the spectacular limestone hills and see alot of water buffalo up close...really cool!!! Went out for a few cocktails and food...soooo cheap!!! Met some other travellers on a tour and made some connections for late on in my travels...gift of gab ey???!!! Some of the boys stayed out and they had a corkr of a night with the natives all taking a shine to them ha ha!!!

Got up at the crack of dawn to par take in some Tai Chi...very hot, humid and rainy morning...who'd thing just stretching out soem muscles would break you out in sush a sweat!!! Bar Me and Gaby the german girl everyone else went caving...we took a bamboo raft lazily down the Li River and gladly so as we had a really good morning of weather and i even managed to go abit rosey!!! Got back just in time as a massive thunder storm hit with very heavy rain!!! Ha ha did i mention i didn't go caving!!!! The others got drenched!!! I had a one on one calligraphy class mid afternoon and learnt how to write my name in chinese...very complicated language but the LI in my name means beautiful Had a girls night out and had a pedicure tee hee and then early night.

On Tuesday went canoeing...rained all day but as everyone was a bit excitable with the oars we were wet anyway. Shane managed to break his showing off ha ha and Paul split his but cleverly swapped it with Ben. All of them were lucky and avoided paying the huge charge of 2quid to replace them!!!! As the area has had such heavy rain lately our 3 hour trip only took 1 and a half so smiles all round!! In the afternoon took our stuff out to a neighbouring village Chalong where we were staying for two nights in a simple guest house in the woods with alot of character and bugs BIG BUGS!! That afternoon did a chinese cookery course so im even better cook than before now and then went out in Yangshou for leader Pete's birthday. Me and Goodie came back to guesthouse to a nice surprise of spiders and scorpion like creatures...she over reacts just as much as me so we were screaming probably more than neccessay!! We were tempted to go find another hotel (at 1am??!!) but Pete came to the rescue and tugged my mozi net into my bed while i sat on it ha ha......where i slept in my close and dared not move an inch!!!

Woke up to another rainy day...supposed to go on day long bike ride but it was postponed to 1pm...we set off into the rice paddies and had a few mini adventures...namely Gaby getting 2 punctures and Paul and Shane being 'mascho mascho men' and saving her!!! We then had to cross the river on bamboo rafts with our bikes and us stupid girlies nealry tipped ours over!!! I was so not wanting to fall in (had my camera) so sat in the most stupid postion (bum in air) so that the locals had a good laugh and the boys were weak with laughter!!! That night all of us rather tired with hangovers, bikers bottoms etc we stayed at the guesthouse and chilled. I dosed myself in mozi repellent as am getting bitten to shreads!!! lucy our local guide says its my blood type...either way i had a near miss with a bottle of 100% DEET and still got bitten!!!