Monday, 30 May 2011

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...

1 comment:

  1. Sounds awesome guys....except maybe the smog and 18hrs of public transport. I have also been travelling - if you count going from the couch for feeds to the nursery for nappy changes...oh well. Love to you both.

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