Saturday 7th April

We woke up early, again! Today we were heading towards the countryside! Finally! I was looking forward to getting out of the big cities!

We jumped on a private bus for just over an hour where we all pretty much slept. We got to Yangshuo, the first thing I noticed was how quiet it was, that maybe because it was 8 am in the morning, but if we were in the city it would already be busy. We arrived at our hotel and we had to wait till 2 pm for our rooms. Leon took us on a tour of the town, which is pretty small and empty, it was lovely! We went to Lucy's for breakfast, where Stu had a full English and I had banana pancake! Yum!

We returned back to the hotel and took this opportunity to book one nights accommodation in Phnom Penh and to update our blog, which took far much longer than it should have done!

We managed to get in our rooms at 12:30, so we had a quick shower and some lunch before we had to meet Leon downstairs for our river cruise along the Li River.

The boat cruise was a must do on the list, it wasn't a very sunny day but tomorrow was supposed to be better. We jumped on the boat and started cruising down. The countryside was beautiful, all the limestone mountains rising from the ground everywhere. They were all covered in green trees and it was just good to relax and take in the views. Looked much better than the sky scrapers of Shanghai any day!

The locals were going about their daily lives along the river, fishing, looking after the water buffalo which they use to plough the fields.

A boat of Chinese tourist was so amazed by our boat full of Westerners that they drove alongside us for 5 minutes taking photos and filming us! That's a lot of wasted pictures in my opinion!

After a couple of hours we returned back to the hotel to get ready for dinner, the town was much livelier now. There were hundreds of Westerners now; obviously this was the place to go on a tour of China! The local shops were still opening and music was blaring from all the night clubs that have been opened here. It felt like being at home for a moment!

We went to a restaurant that Leon took us that had, what I described as, communist Santa outside. Basically a Santa Claus looking man dressed in army gear, why? I don't know! Stu had fried snails, which looked horrible, Marta and Jeremy had the local dish of beer fish which was pretty tasty! We also tried rice wine; well I smelt it and nearly threw up from the vile smell! Alex (the German which explains a lot) had quite a bit of rice wine.

We went back to Lucy's for a few drinks, which Stu, Nina and I got lost trying to find it, and had a good natter and a laugh, I will not repeat the conversation as they wouldn't be classed very 'PC' nowadays!

We returned back to the hotel to be up early for biking, bamboo rafting and hiking!

Sunday 8th April

Up and ready for a 9 am start, Alex was missing! Mathias told us that the rice wine took its affect and Alex was feeling it pretty bad this morning!

We walked through the quiet town again to pick up our rental bikes! Our local guide Kate led the way through the manic traffic it was pretty scary at times, one truck driver decided to pull out in front of me. Road rage came out not that he understood any of it but it made me feel slightly better! We cycled for about 10 minutes to the river to go for our bamboo rafting! There were two per raft and our guide/captain. Leon gave us 'water pistols' which looked very familiar to bike pumps, but they worked effectively (mine did anyway, Stu's didn't). Our guide started pushing us down the river, a bit like Venice as it is shown in the movies! I think our guide did the first shot to start of the water fight against everyone! This got us into more trouble! Then we declared war with Sweden and had an epic battle. I think the British won upon looking at how wet Maria and Nina were! Our guide even joined in and did a stealth attack against Maria when she was sleeping! We floated down the river occasionally going down a waterfall (a mini one!) which was made amusing by our guide scream 'WOOOOO' or 'YEEAAAAHHHH'!!

We went past another couple trying to move the boat themselves with their guide just chilling! The women was doing an awful job and her boyfriend/husband, grabbed the pole to 'show' her how to do it. Which nearly resulted him falling in, I which he did as it would have been a kick in the teeth for him!

We had a couple of hours down the river before we made landfall and we gave our guide a tip as we enjoyed his company and he was amusing!

We jumped back on the bikes which had magically appeared at our new location for about an hour's ride. This hour included dodging other bikes tourist and locals and the ridiculous amount of tour buses. We arrived at Moon hill to walk the 800 odd steps to the top, before lunch! I was not looking forward to this, it was rather warm today and the hill was pretty steep. We went off walking, I didn't bother counting the steps as it would make it worse after 30 minutes we reached to top, a lot wetter than we started off though. The view was fantastic; looking down into the valley below was worth the walk up. We practically ran down as we were all so hungry! My legs were shaking from all the uphill walk, my weeks' worth of exercise right there!

We finally sat down and stuffed our faces full of food! It was good! As always! After having our fill we got back on the bikes and cycled all the way back to town. It was a good day!

We went out to go souvenir shopping before the light show; it was good fun bargaining for bits and pieces. Stu managed to annoy one women by haggling very low, and then rubbed more salt in the wound when he asked for the 100 Yuan to be broken down!

We arranged to go to dinner with Nina and Maria as we were all going to the light show. The light show has been choreographed by the same guy who did the Beijing Olympics. The show is set upon a lake, with several of the hills surrounding, which were lit up during the show. It looked impressive; I couldn't really take any good photos of it though! I don't know what the theme of the show was about, but it was brilliant. They have 500 odd people in the show, including many locals, and they all have their bamboo rafts all floating around doing these simple moves that created an awesome effect. The finally was fantastic, there must have been at least 250 women all wearing these light covered gowns that they could switch on and off creating a brilliant pattern. It was fantastic! I managed to get some videos which I'll just to put up at some point as it is easier to see than me explain!

We went back to the hotel to meet everyone to go to karaoke! We first went to a bar with Leon, who is owned by his friend, which meant free beer and food (the two sacred words for a backpacker, free and beer!). After a couple of hours and some dodgy dance moves, we went to the karaoke club. Luckily they have private booths so we all piled into one and in the price we got a huge crate of beer and fruit platters! Yum! We spent the next 3 hours singing our hearts out, it was properly the best night out I've had! Hearing Mathias singing in his German accent and Jeremy putting on stupid voices was hilarious! I will also post the videos up! We stumbled home at about 1 am, which was surprisingly empty considering how many clubs were here! We returned to the hotel where we attempted to play ping pong before going to bed.

Monday 9th April

We had to be up early again as we had booked a cooking class. The three of us (Nina included) went off to the restaurant but first, a stop to the local market. Which was interesting, there was two halves, the vegetable section and then the meat. I opted out of the meat section, Stu said there was skinned dog hanging up and also dozens of rabbits stuffed in cages, chickens and even cats! Apparently they only eat one type of dog and the other types are pets. This gave some kind of relive to me seeing many Chinese appear to have pet dogs!

We returned back to the restaurant ready to begin, we first had to put on our aprons and KFC style hats. We all looked pretty stupid! First we were making beer fish! I stupidly thought that the fish got 'drunk' first on beer while being alive, apparently this was incorrect! The lady conducting the class went super-fast and I ended up helping Stu and Nina with the next steps as they were behind. It was bloody hot in the kitchen; there were 10-12 woks on so I'm not surprised! Once the fish had been cooked we went off to eat it, it was good! We all tried bits of each other's, each tasted slightly different depending how much pepper and chilli powder one put in!

We also made dumplings, which are still hard to make despite having previous experience from Mongolia! These were also tasty. The best dish that we made (a hot favourite of Nina's and mine) fried egg plant. It was delish! Possible my favourite vegetable now, but only cooked Chinese style! We got give recipes to take home with us, so I am looking forward to cooking it again!

We got back to the hotel as we were going to the caves to go to the mud baths! There was six of us, first we had a guided tour through the cave, which was cheesely lit up which was disappointing as it was an impressive set of caves. If there is anything that can be made an attraction here in China, the Chinese will do it! We got to the mud bath, and got dressed to go in. It was freezing and quite disgusting as well, coming from a child that loved to sit in mud and play with it daily. I think the mud squelching through my toes put me off, and it was freezing. I managed to go up to my chest before chickening out. Maria went full out and covered herself head to toe, hair too! We got washed off, in equally cold water. Luckily the next part was warmer, the spring baths. A nice and toasty 30-40 degrees! We had 30 minutes till we had to leave. We got washed, another cold shower before drying and leaving. We brought a photo of us posing in the mud! Properly overpriced, but I don't care, it's a funny picture! We got dropped off back at the hotel ready to leave.

We had to catch a bus to the train station and then a train to the Chinese/Hong Kong border and then another train! Fun days ahead!

We also said goodbye to Marta and Jeremy, they were staying in China to see a bit more. Plus Jeremy needed a visa for Hong Kong and it was going to be a pain so didn't bother. It was a sad time.

We left them and went to catch the last overnight train for the tour.

Overall view on Yangshuo:

The countryside was a refreshing break, needed by all! It was absolutely beautiful here and should be visited when coming to China. There is so much to do here that it would be hard to be bored here. There is a very Western commercial side to Yangshuo which I liked and hated at the same time. Either way, this has been my highlight so far on my trip.

Total miles travelled from UK: 10,936

Transport taken:

Trains = 18

Boats = 1

Bus = 1

Hours ahead of UK:

+8

Our Photos:

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