The Chinese countryside

Quick blog update as were still a bit behind with them! Hopefully we'll get some photos to you soon. We've been very busy for the past 4 (?) days!.

We arrived in Guilin after our long train ride and had to get a bus to Yangshou - described in the Lonely Planet as a backpackers haven. There were certainy more westerners than we had seen up until that point but it was still a nice enough town with trinket stalls and nice food. The surroundings are what draws everyone to Yangshou, it sits on the river Li and is surrounded by huge limestone karsts - truly beautiful.

By the way, we stayed at the Fawlty Towers hotel - the manager's name was Basil!

As it is a small town we signed ourselves up for some activities. The first morning we thought we'd try our hand at some caligraphy. 6 of us turned up at the hotel lobby for our lesson and were met by 2 teachers who said there were too many of us and we'd need to be in 2 groups. The others went across the road to their lesson and we waited with the teacher. He said just a moment and the motos will be here to pick us up.

!!! Motos!! My obvious reaction was that I wasn't getting on the back of a motorbike, but Rosie said that's what all the taxis will be like in Vietnam so I gritted my teeth and held on tight and we're both still alive to tell the tale! Chris thought it was fun!
It turned out that there was plenty of room at the other lesson and we were diddled a bit some how. But it was a good lesson with a nice guy so we don't mind too much.

That evening we went on an hours boat ride along the river. The scenery was stunning (photos soon) and we ate in a small restaurant in the middle of nowhere at the end of our journey.

Chris went white water rafting with our guide the next moring. Everyone else was playing it safe and either went Kayaking or stayed in town. It turned out that Chris had by far the best time out of everybody! Qimin said it's twice as scary rafting with Chris than the times she's done it before!!

That afternoon we took part in a cookery school, it was great. The teacher picked us up from our hotel to take us to the local market. Big piles of chilis, ginger, unidentifiable greens, chickens in cages, toads in nets and somewhere in the background yelping dogs.

We cycled (yes Dad, I cycled) 1/2 hour to the hostel we were staying at that night and then walked down to the school.
We were taught how to cook steamed chicken, chili pork, garlic greens and egg wrapped dumplings. It all tasted yummy, and we bought a cook book so that when we eventually returned home we can have a go at cooking it again.


Sorry but you're still not up to date.
We've got to go and catch our train to Hong Kong now.