So now it's May and the May holidays have been and gone. We actually made it our destination with no fuss! We had an early mandarin lesson on wednesday which differed from he usual. There were lots of students waiting to be collected and our teacher was rushing around so some P6 students taught us instead. Izzie had 5 sensible girls teaching her making sure she understood what she was saying I got 4 boys, who although very particular about the intonation, rarely explained and also tried to teach me how to swear before Joy, our teacher, hit them round the back of the head. It was actually rather fun. They would give us stickers when we were doing well, and they liked the fact we were trying to learn things. All in all it was a rather fun affair.
I spent thursday packing and tidying and cleaning, bits and bobs of that description before we set off to get our train. We did not run late nor did we have any sort of problems. Before we knew it we were settling ourselves in on the train. We had the middle bunks. This was possibly not the best lace to be. I kicked the man below in the head as I was climbing down, Izzie dropped a book, clothes and other miscellaneous items on him. There may have been another incident but either way, he got a fair beating from us!
I ended up in an unexpected conversation with 3 chinese men. One had been very interested in what we were reading. He asked if he could have a look at the book I was reading at the time which happened to be my bible. We entered this whole conversational about being a christian, how often I read my bible,what a nice book it was, and then one pipes up asking what the difference between a Catholic and a Christian is. Perhaps there are many misconceptions about Christianity in China. The 3 men seemed to think it was great that I was a Christian!
I didn't sleep very much on the train. It was quite noisy due to some people staying up late to drink rice wine. I think I eventually drifted off around 5ish maybe later which didn't do me much good as the train pulled in to the station at 6.45. I was cranky. We got ourselves some tickets to the river cruise from Guilin down to Yangshuo and waited. We were picked up by Asta LaVista! man. He cheered me right up! The cruise was lovely, spectacular scenery. We spoke to a retired couple from Blackpool. lovely people. They told us all about their travels. I love being on boats. I blame Daddy.
After a nice lunch we docked and got off and this started the hunt for our hostel. Eventually we found it and ran into 2 guys who had also been on the cruise with us. It turned out we were sharing a dorm with them also so it was only natural that we introduced ourselves.
We left our stuff behind and hired some mountain bikes to do a bit of exploring of the area. It's the best way I think. We put ourselves on a main road and would occasionally just disappear down some dirt track used only by farmers. One got to the point where the bikes became an impossibility so we left them and went by foot. Not too far though. It was stunning.
We returned tired, hot and sweaty. However we hit the main street to see what was for sale. I got some postcards as always. They don't do the scenery (shan shui 山水) justice.
We had made plans to meet up with Zoe and Koen that evening but who did we run into on the way back to the hostel? Zoe and Koen! They were staying in the same hostel as us too. We headed back for a quick shower and went out for some food. Western of course as it was reasonably cheap! I got falafel pitta breads, never thought that would be something I'd get in China!
Zoe and Koen were getting the last bus back that night so we headed back to the hostel and waited in the lobby, where Tomas and Julian (the cruise guys) also appeared, looking a little sunburnt. We agreed to meet them for a drink a little later. It was nice chatting to them actually but felt a little strange all returning to the same room at the hostel.
Izzie and I got up early on Saturday (yet again deprived of a decent night's sleep!) as we had booked to go rock climbing. There was an american guy there too , Joe, who was very friendly and helpful. It was fun but tiring. I reached a mental block on the climbs. It involved an overhang and I was all set to pull myself over but decided I didn't want to. The instructor kept telling me it was too easy for me, and I knew phsyically I could finish the climbs but I couldn't make myself. Oh well. There was a chinese climber, also out who was amazing. He stopped halfway up one climb and stoof on a little ledge and started to sing. He had quite a set of lungs on him actually. He entertained us all. It was all in the name of fun. A good morning.
After we returned Joe showed us some good places to eat. As we were walking down a street we suddenly heard "Seona! Izzie!" Sat in a cafe were some people we know from Foshan (Mike, Sean, Phoebe , Helen) Small world. We said hello and chatted a little, laughed at the fact they were having breakfast and we were off for lunch.
Joe left us in a cafe of our own and we sat down to order some food (I had some unusual hash browns) when we heard "well look who it is" I looked up to see Mike T and Elliot (some people we trained with in Beijing) walking past with their suitcases. We hadn't seen them since as they are in Shanghai so we had a bit of a catch up. It was really nice to bump into so many people we know.
After lunch we went and booked ourselves onto a cave tour. We had seen photos form our friends who went a while back and decided it looked fun. It took a while to actually get there but we made it. Our guide was a happy little chap, kept saying "come on laoshi" and occasionally would tell us things in chinese. Halfway through the tour we reached the mud baths. Being the adventurous girls that we are we dived straight in. After we had stripped down to our swimwear I mean. We went down the mud slides and had mud fights, got mud in our eyes and got very, very muddy! Fun though. We finished the rest of the tour by climbing a set of rocks and swimming in some very cold water. I didn't so much swim as wade waist deep and complain about the temperature. It was a good tour though.
We made our way back and set off for cormorant fishing. I hadn't been too excited about this but it was something Izzie particularly wanted to do and it wasn't too bad. I did get bitten by a bird though, and someone mistook me for his friend, a French man. How charming.
We had to make dinner a quick affair, fitting in the famous Guilin noodles nicely, before heading back to our hostel to be collected for our bus journey home. It was a sleeper bus with beds that didn't quite fit someone like me. I was too tall to lie down straight and it wasn't wide enough to curl up so it was rather uncomfortable and I slept fitfully. After making it back to Guangzhou we went to Starbucks for breakfast and Lucy's for lunch. You may remember Lucy's from our last attempted trip to Guilin!
I then spent yesterday lazing around in bed and waited until evening to wash the remainder of the mud out of my hair.
It was an exhausting weekend, and although my muscles may not be thanking me for it, it was definitely worth it!
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