Wednesday : sunny

It was a bit quieter this morning, still a lot of commotion around 5:30-6am, but there were no dogs barking and music. So were able to fall back asleep and wake up we wanted to.

We left the house around 9am and made our way up to the cafe where we had dinner the previous night. Except I had to go back down, we forgot to pack a phone to tell us the time. Had to keep time today so we didn't miss our transfer to the airport.

They put on a good breakfast spread this cafe. Yoghurt and muesli, Ham and Egg with toast, which we used for Vegemite, coffee and juice, and freshly cut up fruit, big breaky.

With all that food, you would of thought we would of gone for a walk. but you would be wrong. We just sat up on the hill and looked down over the town and talked the whole morning.

Soon it was time to go down and check out. I managed to squeeze in a quick shower. To freshen up before the plane. We didn't exactly checkout seeing how we already had paid for the room, and the house was empty, we just split this crazy scene.

We stopped at wifi pub and had our last beers in Dazai looking up at the mountains. Then we walked to the entry gated and our ride was waiting for us.

It was about a 2.5hr direct
drive to Guilin airport, best $50 we have spent. So glad we didn't have to sit on a dirty, filthy, stinking, slow bus anymore. Wow

Well this whole week may of seemed like nothing but time spent on transport and in transit towns. It was so worth the trouble though, we visited three awesome little towns. That will most likely be the three standout towns for our time in China. We only had a week to get to Shanghai, we could of easily spent three weeks doing that little loop. We just did the highlight reel thats for sure. Been very busy moving around seeing the sights and traveling to the next sight. Now we are on track for of exit date of China and into Nepal on the 15th. Our base camp tour starts on the 17th. Now comes the easy part of our China trip. Nothing but bullet trains and fast planes oh yeah.

We got dropped off at Guilin airport walked through the doors and straight away to the right was a ticket office and there were seats available for the hour later flight that we had planned to catch. Pretty pricy flight but you got to do what you got to do. Done that was too easy, now we wait.

KFC downstairs sweet! The three hour wait was over quick and it was time to checkin. It was the quickest checking ever, no lines for the luggage and security. We sat down at our gate and read for another hour before boarding.

New plane, comfy seats, very easy flight, the staff were fast to serve dinner and clean up, and the pilot was fast getting us there. He knocked 20min off our ETA.

No train at shanghai airport just about a kilometer of that moving boardwalk escalator thing. Our bags were in the first batch of bags to arrive at baggage claim. In fact the hole airport to airport experience has been a standout. I don't think we had to wait for anything. The longest wait we had, was just waiting for our plane and even those 4hrs flew by. No pun intended. Very relaxing stress free trip. The only annoying thing was that we wanted to make a phone call to a Shanghai hotel from Guilin, but the pay phones only took these prepaid cards. Then the call didn't work. No area codes in our guide for Shanghai, so we'll wait for Shanghai to make the call. Then in Shanghai we and these useless touchscreen pay phones that didn't recognize the card anyway. We eventually found a regular coin eating phone. And made the call. Rooms available nice.

Short taxi line wait, and we then had an hour drive from the airport to Shanghai city. It was all motorways too, we stopped only once at a set of lights on the way to the hotel.

We are staying in China's oldest hotel, and we are on the top floor (there's only six floors) with view of the river. Didn't last long though the room that they gave us hadn't been prepared. Not happy jan and on Kim's birthday night.

Then we got moved to this dingy dark room. We'll have to speak to reception tomorrow to see if we can move again. There's talk of possible hotel change too, we could be staying at a brand new hotel for the same price.

They don't call it Chinas oldest hotel for nothing, this room is a bit dated. They have grand receptions and hallways then the rooms are something else. Our first room was much better.

We want to relax tomorrow, maybe eat nothing but dumplings and cake and take an easy walk, then go see a Chinese acrobatic show in the evening. Hanging to see what breakfast holds.