Onwards Into Mainland China...

Thanks to the Jade Emu guesthouse in Dali having bypassed the Great Firewall of China thru rerouting thru Hong Kong  i'm able to update this blog! [This turns out to be untrue as Blogspot was down! Arrgghhhhh... so this post has actually been published from Mongolia about 2.5 weeks later. Lucky i saved the draft.]

Time to head to mainland China... We caught a ferry and 2 trains to get from Lamma Island to Shenzhen, which is one of the smoggiest cities in the world due to the factories but it is also one of the richest cities in China, where we sat around trying not to breathe in too much pollution while we waited for our sleeper train to Guilin, Guangxi Province. We arrived in Guilin at 7am and staggered about in a half daze due to lack of proper food (note to self: snacks do not = meal!) until we found a restaurant open where we could get something other than fish sausages to eat. Rejuvinated we headed out to the Guilin Uni of Technology to meet our next Couchsurfing host, JC, a French guy teaching French to Chinese Engineering students and his girlfriend Anna who is a tour guide.

We spent a couple of days in Guilin, alternately being harassed by JC's kittens, getting lost on the local buses (only 1 Yuan - about 15cents - though so a pretty cheap way to get about!), checking out the local sights and trying some local dishes. The highlight was the Reed Flute Caves, once we found them, so impressive especially when we managed to hang back from the bazillions of Chinese tour groups and get a bit of a quieter experience. 

Thanks to Anna we organised a boat trip down the Li River to Yangshuo, a nice way to get there and a lovely introduction to the Karsts and caves along the way. Yangshuo itself is absolutely gorgeous, totally surrounded by Karsts and two rivers winding around them and it helped that the town was very backpacker friendly and had banana pancakes! We stayed with another Couchsurfer Host, this time an actual local who had lived in Yangshuo all his life - Sam and his family have opened a Guesthouse which you can check out at Fun Sam's Guesthouse. Sam speaks fluent English and is a very friendly and open guy, i'd definitely reccommend his guesthouse and his tours to anyone heading his way!

Our first night in Yangshuo was crazy, because it was a Saturday night there were HORDES of domestic tourists in town, the Chinese nightclubs with their deafening music were going off. The next couple of nights were much nicer with less people and a more relaxed atmosphere. The first full day we had in Yangshuo we got sick of waiting for the rain storm to stop - rainy season had come early - and headed out on our bikes anyway getting totally soaked in the process. Due to crappy Lonely Planet instructions we didn't end up reaching our destination but we had lots of fun winding thru rice paddies and local villages. 

The second day we spent out at Fuli a local "old town" that specialised in fan making, checking out the architecture, the lovely river and the fan making stages. We caught a bamboo raft back up the river which was fun but a bit hairy as the river was very swollen and fast flowing from the recent rain and we were going against the flow! We then climbed up one of the Karsts to see a spectacular view of Yangshuo, the Karsts and the river in the pretty sunset light.

Next day it was sadly time to leave Fun Sam's Guesthouse and head to our next destination of Dali - this meant a coach back to Guilin, a sleeper train to Kunming (we went upper class this time in the soft sleeper, oooh la la!), taxi from train station to bus stop, coach to Dali main town and then a local bus to Dali old town - phew. Thats about 18 hours of transport... We found a fantastic place in Dali run by an aussie guy - western toilet, dvd player, clean sheets, relaxing courtyard etc etc and all for only $11 aussie! Its called the Jade Emu and i would definitely recommend it to anyone wanting a comfortable westernised guesthouse that still has some Chinese character.  

So we are now starting our adventures in Yunnan Province, soon we'll be heading further into the mountains and skimming close to Tibet. Time to crack out the winter woolies! Until next time...

First Stop - Hong Kong!

View from Avenue of Stars, Kowloon

Hello from Lamma Island, Hong Kong!

I'm writing this from our first ever Couch Surfing host's home, situated on the leafy, village-feel, laidback, car free Lamma Island. But i probably should start from the beginning of our trip...

 

Flights were uneventful, stopover was predictably boring - bring a book if you are going to be stuck in Bandar-Seri-Begawan, Brunei airport for any length of time! We made our way to our accommodation, Cosmic Guesthouse on Nathan Rd in Kowloon, easily. Definitely not luxury and about the size of your average toilet cubicle but it was clean, the staff were friendly and it was cheap compared to other accom. We also had a great first meal in Ashley street. Our first evening in Hong Kong we watched the lights across the Harbour on the skyrises in Central - not so amazing as the fog/smog/cloud put a bit of a dampner on it but still fun and i got to try out my new tripod!



Scaffolding Hong Kong style

The next day we caught the Star Ferry to Central and walked around the City - looked for an internet cafe but quickly realised that as there is free wireless everywhere and everyone has smartphones no need for internet cafes! We've since worked out that Pacific Coffee shops have free internet when you buy a drink - so good luck for Tim who loves to get a caffeine fix! We spent the day up Victoria Peak, did the tram car ride up and then checked out the view and did the circuit walk. Even though it was very cloudy it was still pretty spectacular. We learnt that the birds of prey that we'd seen flying around were Black Kites, not sure what they eat though as we didn't see any other animals!

 

Mmm Crunky Nudes!

We made an executive decision to extend our stay at Cosmic as the weather wasn't looking great and we didn't want to risk camping - so we decided to do a day trip to Lantau island instead. The Ferry trip was pretty cool, seeing all the container ships and barges in the harbour, plus some teeny dinghys with locals fishing - game! We took the bus up to Ngong Ping and the Big Buddha which was up 260 steps, very popular location as it was a long weekend. We also visited the Tai O fishing village on Lantau, a definite change of pace from the big city lots of very fresh seafood, and some dried stuff as well - including an entire dried shark about 1.5m long! We also did the Cable Car ride over the peaks and down past the airport and over the water - pretty amazing. After we got back to Hong Kong Island we met up withTim's ex-workmate Johnny who is living in Shenzen, China at the moment and tried out a few of the ex-pat watering holes in Long Kwai Fong, they got the tick of approval but we all wondered where the locals drink.





New carnation dog breed!

Yesterday we just wandered up Nathan Rd for a look-see. Checked out the goldfish market, the flower markets and the bird garden - yep, lots of goldfish, flowers and birds. Then we headed off to Lamma island. We arrived at Pascale's house via her excellent instructions and walked straight into her daughters 8th birthday party! Before we knew it we had beers in hand and we're thoroughly enjoying the island hospitality... Today we walked from one end of the island pretty much to the other, views of the villages (and also the local coal plant and quarry) plus a great seafood lunch made for a very enjoyable day despite the 30 degree + heat!

So, yep, we are having a lot of fun already, although we keep having to tell ourselves that China will NOT be as well signposted as Hong Kong and that everyone will NOT speak english for the rest of our trip - i think we have been very spoilt at our first destination!