China part 3 - days 12-17

Post number three....

DAY 12: as with day 11, this was an annoying day, because we had to make our way back to shanghai from the water town. The group was scheduled to take a 23 hour train to guilin in the late afternoon, but Chris and i decided to fly instead given than the ticket was cheap, and the flight was only 2 hours. This meant that he and I had an extra day and night in shanghai. We went to the shanghai museum in the afternoon. The best part was that it was free. The exhibits were ok, but there was nothing too exciting..... Mostly just a lot of really old Chinese stuff (like pottery and coins and seals). I did enjoy that the early Chinese 'coins' were the size and shape of knives. I'm not sure I believe the historians are correct in assuming they were currency.....they looked like weapons. For dinner i forced Chris to go to a vegetarian restaurant....which turned out to be fantastic. Even I was a little skeptical about the "vegetarian sweet and sour pork" but it turned out to be awesome.

DAY 13: we were up very early to catch our flight to Guilin. The flight was fine, but interesting....I guess aviation in china is a little different than elsewhere. In the air there was minor, minor turbulence. Nothing to be concerned with, however the pilot found it necessary to come on the intercom every fifteen minutes and YELL in Chinese. The chinese LOVE to yell. The first time he did it, his tone made me think he was saying "we're going down"....once the English automated voice dub came on though, it was just "we are experiencing turbulence, please put your seat belts on". I Don't know why the pilot insisted on literally yelling every 15 minutes (for the entire 2 hour flight) about it.

We took a taxi from Guilin to Yangshuo. We got a really good price at the airport for the 1 hour trip south. The price was so good I was worried we were getting ripped off. All was well until we got to Yangshuo and the driver couldn't find the hotel. We circled around a lot and the driver started to get mad....he did a lot of yelling in chinese....at us, and on his cell phone. Then we stopped....we thought he was asking for directions, but it turned out he was picking up a family of 6 and putting them in the van with us. Chris and I were in the back, so we were trapped, and he started driving. I started saying "excuse me, let us out" repeatedly, but the asshole completely ignored me. Meanwhile the retarded Chinese family is laughing....apparently the idea that we were literally being held against our will being driven to an unknown location, was hilarious to them. Finally I lost it and yelled. That shut everyone up and we were released at the town centre. Luckily he didn't try to ask for more money for all the extra driving we did, because I can't imagine the Chinese prison system is very good, and that is likely where I would have ended up after dealing with him. Anyway, we found the hotel, and the taxi was very cheap, so it all ended up ok. Yangshuo is really very lovely. We spent the afternoon exploring. It's quite touristy in spots, but the scenery is spectacular. The main area has a tonne of bars and restaurants and shops; it's a good place to enjoy a beer and the scenery. Chris and I had a drink on a shaded patio and people watched for a while which was nice. The rest of the group finally showed up at 6:30, after a 26 hour trip, and we had an awesome clay pot rice dinner which set me back $1.50. Unfortunately I got a bit sick this day and it lasted a few days, which took away from yangshuo a but for me.

DAY 14: I was still a bit sick, but feeling a bit better. We spent most of the day bike riding through the gorgeous country side; think rice fields and limestone peaks. We got to a limestone peak called "moon hill," which we decided to climb for the view. It wasn't too high, but for some reason, Joe, chris, jasmin and I decided to almost run up it. I don't know why, but we booked it to the top. It was nice...the views were nice. When we first pulled in to the entrance (on the bikes) we were swarmed by literally 20 little (4'10") crazy Chinese women wanting to sell water (whats that father ted quote? "it was like a sea of jam, only instead of jam, it was old ladies"). Some of them followed us all the way up to the top, just to try to sell us water. We told them "no" about 100 times, but they still followed us. At the top, Chris felt bad and offered to buy a bottle.....well of course she tried to rip him off and charge about 3 times a reasonable price. Ha! Typical. I had a fantastic (and very cheap) massage when we got back.

DAY 15: started with another massage, which was great. Chris woke up sick this morning and had to spend the entire day in bed. Luckily for him it was just a 24 hour thing.

In the afternoon we did a river cruise down the Li river on imitation bamboo boats.... Instead of bamboo they used plastic pipe in the shape of bamboo. It was nice and relaxing and the scenery is beautiful. It's hard to explain....very green with lots of peaks, but kind of hazy....giving it a kind of romantic feel.

It was one of the guys on the tours birthday so we went for a traditional Chinese birthday meal. Apparently on your birthday you eat long noodles to represent long life. The noodles we had were a local type of rice noodle and they were fine....for me the problem with the restaurant/experience was that there was dog on the menu. Yuck. I stuck to vegetarian noodles with egg as I was kind of put off by the thought of eating meat.

I wanted to go for drinks, but the birthday boy is not exactly a party animal (he had green tea with his meal) so we ended up having a fairly subdued night.

DAY 16: we travelled by bus for 4 hours to the longji rice terraces north of Guilin. We arrived midday and spent about 40 minutes hiking up to our accommodation for the night; a cute traditional wooden building with spectacular views of the rice fields. I was actually a little concerned it might collapse though There wasn't really anything to do except for relax and enjoy the peace and quiet. After all the chaos of the big cities, it is nice to get away a bit.....although as I get bored quite easily it was a little too quiet.

DAY17: we spent this day trekking through the rice terraces. We hiked for 2.5 hours in the morning to a village where we stopped for lunch. I was a little skeptical about the food when we first arrived as we were literally eating in someones wooden house. However once I tasted the food my opinions changed..., it was really really good. Mostly vegetarian, which was nice as I have not really been eating meat as the quality sometimes scares me.

We hiked another few hours in the afternoon to arrive at the town of Longji where we spent the night. The scenery on the hike was spectacular. Unfortunately it rained off and on all day so parts of the hike were clouded in, but there were enough clear breaks that it was well worth while.

The guest house we stayed at was much nicer (and sturdier) than the night before and we had a nice evening as a group sitting in the restaurant/lounge area enjoying dinner and drinks.

OTHER NOTES: I just realized that i haven't mentioned the hoarking yet.....everyone in china hoarks up their phlegm and it's disgusting. I can understand how they get so congested.....with the pollution being so bad.....but it's just gross. Use Kleenex or something. In xi'an we nearly got spit on numerous times. It's become a regular occurrence to wake up at 7am to the sound of "hooooooooaaark". Nothing you can do but laugh when that happens.

Also, I thought i was an impatient person, but I have discovered that i have nothing on the Chinese.....especially when driving. If the car ahead of them is going even 5 clicks slower then they are, they would rather swerve into oncoming traffic and play chicken with a bus, than slow down for a few seconds until it is safe to pass. It's nuts....and scary. Who ever said the Chinese are bad drivers was wrong....they are fantastic drivers....they just drive recklessly without any regard for rules, curtsey, common sense or human life.

Cheers,

Siobhan Sent from my iPad