Our final week in China

Our final week in China was spent in and around Guilin in the Guangxi Province in the south of China.  On the sleeper train to Guilin from Chengdu Stephen and I were in separate compartments (this wasn’t by choice – we still like each other!).  I was in a compartment with 6 Chinese people - 4 men and a woman and her little girl.  Let’s just say they weren’t the best neighbours I’ve ever had – they all sat opposite me and watched me for hours and were up at 5am and were climbing up and down the bunk beds like ninjas – so, after a while I went to see how Stephen was getting on, and found him sharing some walnuts with a Chinese man who kept bowing to him!

Apparently when Stephen first arrived in the carriage, this guy couldn’t have looked more pleased and really enthusiastically shook Stephen’s hand.  Ever since then they had been chatting, although the guy didn’t speak English and Stephen doesn’t speak Chinese, and Stephen had been having a whale of a time! 

When we got off the train in Guilin we made our way to our hostel and after immediate showers (we were caked in grime from the sleeper train – ew!), we sat in the hostel’s courtyard and had a drink.  After an hour or so we were approached by an English guy, Dan, and his French girlfriend, Florin, who said they were doing a boat trip in the morning and asked if we’d like to join them.  We weren’t too sure at first as we’d heard about some really expensive cruises in the area that didn’t sound up our street, but Dan explained that what they had in mind was hiring a bamboo raft to take them down the Li River to a town downstream.  It sounded lovely, so we said we’d join them, and met them the following morning to set off.

It was a bit of a pain getting to the river as we had to get two buses, but it was well worth it when we got there.  I couldn’t believe the scenery; it looked just like a postcard.  The river is surrounded by incredible hills which seem to appear and disappear from nowhere, making it really unique, and to me, it looked very Chinese.  After we’d hired a raft and a driver we set off downstream.  It was lovely just dangling our legs in the water and enjoying the views.  Our trip lasted a couple of hours and then we got dropped off at a town before heading back to our hostel in Guilin. 

This hostel was really good for meeting people and we managed to speak to quite a lot of interesting people (and one or two not so interesting people!).  On one evening we got a group together and visited the Guilin night market, but unfortunately, after a short while we all got separated.  Stephen and I spent a few hours walking round the market with a really nice American couple, Alexa and Jason, before heading back to the hostel for a relatively early night.  After we’d been in bed a couple of hours, however, our roommate, Geoff, who had also come to the night market but got lost, made an appearance.  He literally crawled into the room on his hands and knees, farted really loudly and got into bed.  We thought he’d then pass out in bed and we wouldn’t hear anything off him until the morning, so we closed our eyes and tried to get back to sleep.  After a couple of minutes, however, the silence was broken and we were woken up by Geoff shouting ‘I am not afraid!  I am not afraid!’ in his sleep!?  He then got up and started wandering round the room looking for somewhere to wee!  He eventually let himself out of the room and pottered off down the corridor where we heard him fart again.  Basically, this pattern of ridiculously odd behaviour carried on literally all night, and we think he was sick in his bed!  In the morning we were expecting him to have the hangover from hell, but he got up as if nothing had happened and just said ‘Morning’.  Very strange indeed!!

Although we were incredibly tired from getting no sleep the night before, we’d planned on making our way to The Dragon’s Backbone, the rice terraces at Long Ji, so we got up and made the journey.  Once again, the scenery was incredible.  It may not sound like much, but the terraces are like giant steps in the hillside where they grow rice.  It’s so amazing because of the sheer number of steps.  You’ll have to look at the pictures to understand, I’m not doing it justice.  We stayed here overnight and got up at 5am to see the sunrise over the terraces – tiring, but lovely!

We were also lucky enough to be in China during Golden Week, a huge national holiday which celebrated China’s 60th year as a people’s republic.  This is a huge week of celebrations for the Chinese.  On the first day there was an enormous parade in Beijing which we were able to watch on TV in the hostel bar.  As we were watching, the Chinese staff seemed really excited and when their national anthem played, they all stood up and sang along.  We didn’t want to seem rude, so Stephen and I had to stand up too. 

After the parade finished we got a bus to a place called Yang Shuo where we were going to stay for 2 nights.  Because this little town sits on the banks of the Li River it has become very touristy.  Whereas usually this isn’t our cup of tea, it was really good to be somewhere lively for the celebrations, and we were able to have a few drinks and watch the town’s enormous fireworks that night.  The next day we headed out of town and along the river and found a really quiet spot by the river.  Here we swam in the river and sat in the sun – it’s a hard life!

As we’ve probably already said a hundred times, we’re sad to leave China and feel like we have so much more to see, but India awaits and we couldn’t be more excited!