We left Hong Kong by a combination of walking, subway and overland train which when you have a backpack on your back and one your front along with 7 other people all as equally loaded with luggage in probably one of the worlds most crowded cities you can appreciate that it was a bit of a mission. We got to the border checkpoint with mainland China, filled in our health declaration form, were heat scanned for swine flu and had passport stamped and we were in China for real.

We took an overnight hard sleeper train where we had an open 6 berth cabin with a stack of 3 bunks on each side which arrived in Guilin early the next morning. It was a quick transfer on a bus to the town of Yangshuo where we were staying for the next 2 nights.

Yangshuo was first settled in 590AD during the Sui Dynasty and he picturesque 56km Li river winds through the very heart of the Guangxi province's limestone karts hill country. During 1978 the town was opened up to the western visitors and has been doing a thriving trade since as a base to explore the surrounding countryside.

After we had checked into our accommodation we were taken on a brief orientation tour of the town by Lillian who pointed out the usual essentials we were then left to our own devices. During the walk about Lillian had pointed out one of the local massage establishments and it wasn't long before we gravitated towards the door in search of a well needed manipulation. Katie went straight for the Chinese reflexology foot and leg massage and I opted for a body massage to rearrange my spine. Something apparently got lost in the translation and my back massage turned out to be a foot massage the same as Katie's but boy was it worth it! We walked out of there 1 hour later fully relaxed and recuperated. Walking back to the hotel we passed many stalls wanting to sell you their wares. Almost every street was lined with souvenir sellers and most of it was real tourist tat. It was when we rounded the corner and saw a smiling Ronald McDonald figurine and the golden arches that we realised that Yangshouo is the Chinese Benidorm (but with a bit more to offer though!)

Katie had decided to take the optional activity on the first evening of a light show. This light show is famous throughout China as it was choreographed by the same man who did the impressive Beijing Olympic opening ceremony. Not really knowing what to expect I went along with Sjofn and were taken to a huge open air theatre with thousands of other tourists (98% Chinese). The seating is situated on a bank of a large lake, surrounded by kaste hills which were flood lit for the occasion. The show was actually played out on the lake on floats rafts and boats with various scenes depicting the life of the local people, singing and dancing. There were hundreds of performers involved and the lighting tricks were truly impressive. Sjofn and I came away feeling that it was well worth the money for the experience of such a large scale and popular performance.

The following morning we were taking a tour of the surrounding countryside by bicycle. We took a quick stroll across town to get our bikes for the day whilst on the way being offered everything from t-shirts with your portrait on them to having your face modelled in bread dough! We weren't disappointed with our steeds as we were all given matching pea green boneshakers to head out into the countryside with.

First things first we had to get out from the town into the countryside which meant literally taking your life into your own hands and dodging the unpredictable traffic and pedestrians on both the path and road. We thankfully made it out of the town to the quieter roads and before we knew it we were in picture postcard territory. There were farmers working the rice fields, there were huge Karst hills near and far and there was of course the obligatory mist. The karst hills are steep tree covered mounds ranging from 100m to 300m in height . These limestone pinnacles come from a time when the area was an ocean then 190 million years ago a movement in the earth's crust forced these hills upwards where they remain today. We were taking in the beauty of this environment when suddenly out of nowhere appeared a man riding his water buffalo so I stopped my bike to take a picture. This of course cost me money. It was about then that we realised the local people lay in wait with their selection of postcards and other tourist tat and then pounce on the unsuspecting cyclists when they stop. We had women posing in front of us with their children stuffed into baskets wanting 5yuan per picture and for some reason they were intent on selling us small carved wooden ducks! We soon learnt to politely decline, then ignore these people and pressed on into the countryside further. Around lunchtime we arrived at the "Moon Hill" where there is a huge circular hole missing out of the middle of it. I decided that I would take on the challenge of getting to the top up the 900 steps so off I set with a couple of others. I was approached at the bottom of the climb by an old crone wanting to sell me water and I mistakenly showed interest by saying maybe later. She followed me hot on my heels all the way to the top of the climb wanting to sell me water or postcards! She even waited whilst I took my photos and followed me some more like a shadow while I moved from viewpoint to viewpoint. I then decided to climb from the hole in the middle onto the top of the hill and when she didn't follow I assumed that I had lost her. After about 10 minutes on the summit I came back down and there she was. She preceded to follow me all the way back down still trying to flog me water and postcards. I now know that if you show any interest you will never get rid of these troublesome hawkers and being about 90 years old is not going to stop them from following you up a steep climb and back down again for the sale of a bottle of water!

Once we had all met up again it was time for lunch which had been organised by our local guide at a nearby farmers house. We were expecting some simple honest food but somehow they had laid on a huge banquet. The food was delicious and far more than the 8 of us could eat. It seemed such a shame to waste the food but I am sure that the leftovers would have been polished off by the farmers family within seconds of us leaving their humble abode. With our bellies full it was time to cycle back through the amazing countryside into the hustle and bustle of Yangshuo as we had booked ourselves a Chinese calligraphy lesson which would then be followed swiftly by our evening meal of beer fish (a local river fish speciality). We realised that we wouldn't be going hungry on this trip!

Our calligraphy lesson was like being back at school. Myself, Katie and Sjofn were sat at a table and given some rice paper, a calligraphy brush and a small bowl of black ink. Our teacher was going to teach us how to write the number symbols from zero to ten and also our names. We watched her write it first and then we had to write the symbol 3 times trying to get the length, direction and weight of the brushstroke right. It was not as easy as it looks and even holding the brush in the correct manner seemed uncomfortable. When you realise that there are over 2000 different symbols in Mandarin and we were struggling doing the very simple numbers we kind of gained a new respect for the language.

The following day was to be our last day in Yangshuo before moving on to our next destination. Myself and Katie had decided to try and take in a bit more of the Chinese culture and way of life by trying our hand at Tai Chi and Mahjong (not at the same time though) After breakfast we headed on down to the local park with our Tai Chi teacher where he introduced us to the first 10 out of many different moves. Tia Chi is a martial art albeit a very slow one. It is all about balancing your yin and yang. The first part of any move is always the yang expelling negative Chi from you body and the second part is always the yin bringing positive Chi into your body. Also the moves are designed to defend from attack by channelling the energy of the attacker away from the attack points and changing the energy to your advantage with the yin and the following move allowing you to use this rechanneled energy to your favour against the attacker. Well that's the theory in a nutshell. Our master demonstrated the move and we followed, move by move, bit by bit gradually adding another move to the end of the series until we had all 10. I kept getting my Tai Chi ball the wrong way round and got myself in an awful flap but Katie got it first time. We were attracting quite a bit of attention from the public in the park but we soldiered on regardless. Finally our master demonstrated what you can do after years of practice and made us realise that we had a long way to go before we could even say that we could do Tai Chi.

Finally after re-aligning our Chi and becoming fully relaxed we went to learn to play the extremely popular Chinese game of Mahjong. I wont go into detail explaining the rules as I would be here all night and day but after 45 minutes of head scratching and pondering and repeated questioning of our teacher we managed somehow to have a game but all three of us walked away afterwards still not really knowing what half the rules were and really what the game was all about in the first place. Nevertheless Sjofn went and bought a small set of Mahjong in order that we could practice our skills on the upcoming 3 day boat trip up the Yangzi River.