22nd April – Yangshuo

So our first full day in Yangshuo and since the town is really just a tourist mecca we decide to mish out and see the countryside. So since i'm (we're?) not really fond of tour-de-france-type sightseeing we rent the only motorised thing a non-resident can drive – an electric scooter. It has a battery meter and everything, we also discover (once it starts to go a bit slow...it kinda starts dying like a torch battery..) that you can “charge it up” by not accelerating downhill, tho then you crawl a snails pace so its not like its really a viable option for the most part. it starts to rain and den being the driver gets this reat rain coat that covers the front of the bike and then goes over your head...means your hands etc are dry too. It has a nice lil cap too...with this on PLUS the bright orange helmet he is wearing, well he looks every part the dorky tourist and surprisingly neither the raincoat OR the dorky helmet last very long :P Anyways we head south and pass through a village embracing the tourist money and the starting point for one of the caving trips. den was most intrigued about these caving trips cos all the photos we had seen seemed to be bikini-clad young women covered in mud...
Anyways we find a dirt track and take that...right past the local dump! Nice but things pick up after that and we get some magnificent scenery of the karst hills wiyth rice paddies and lil villages, So beautiful i think this is one of my fav parts of china. Its like you see in pictures...or better! so my expectations are fulfilled and more. theres a big karst hill round here which is “famous” as it has a semi-circle hole in it, its called moon hill and the saying is that it looks like different phases of the moon depending on where you it from.
We headed south to find the like 5000 y/o banyan tree, took us a wee while but we should hve just spotted the tourist buses! tree itself was amazing, of a lot f the brqanches it had grown more trunks as to maintain holding its growing weight. however the place was SOOO touristy (for chinese tourists realy) and full of touts and worst of all, things like dancing dressed up monkeys, which just made me furious and worst part is all the chinese taking pictures and thinking its so cute. makes me sick. So we didn't stick around and decided to head back into the countryside again, this time on a more tourist track through the karst hills. Awesome scenery again, jsut winding through these blobs on the countryside and watching people tend their rice fields here and there. Tho...then the lil scooter slooooooowly starts to die. We get a few good down hills and "charge" it up a bit but it soon gets to the point where arn gets off and walks as it is going so slowly with 2 people! So i walk to town while den rides (don't worry he WAS a gentlemen and offered for me to ride it, but lets just say arn is not much of a scooter driver..!). Den actually makes it into town, but only just. What a fab day, one of my fav in china...or even the whole trip. SO wonderful to be out in the countryside and peaceful too! nice "western" dinner too :P

21st April – Guilin – Yangshuo

Arrive Guilin about 12 so had a super nice sleep in and feeling pretty good! Some locals help us onto the city bus and a nice lady shows us the bus station. Its weird, sometimes they are SOO nice and helpful...real extremities. Anyways on the bus which was easy cos i slept most of the way...i never really sleep well on those trains....no idea why!
Yangshuo is surrounded by tall karst hill/rock/mound things which is really why we're visiting. Have a hostel in the tourist part...basically there is a western tourist part (complete with dodgy old americans finding local younger “girlfriends” YUCK) and a chinese tourist part, so we decided to avoid the chinese tour group and their walkie talkies and umbrellas and head for hamburger town! Nice lil place, only a few cobbled streets for us to get lost in, but lots of western food and we eye it up..only then i go have beef fried noodle...hard to break habits! quite a few touts here but nothing compared to India and we find it pretty easy really! have an easy afternoon chilling and wandering around. nice place, i like it here! strange to see so many white folk again!

20th April - Kunming – Guilin

Whole day today before we head on the train so we headed up to the funky uni part of town and shopped and chilled out there for a bit. Off to the train station and once again its all pretty easy. top bunk...well you can't even sit cos you're so close to the ceiling! and dennis has a good time watcing arn trying to navigate the ladder up and down! its hard to get down where youve only got 3 feet to maneuver yourself in! but i snuggled down at lights out and even managed to do a late night pee without falling on the bloke below me...

19th April – Shangri-la – Kunming

UP early and to the airport which is some more chinese chaos and disorganised organisation. Have an argument with customs women who after she went through ALL my things and even sniffed the lip gloss on my phone, insisted i go back an check it in....GRRR. more waiting behind queue hopping chinese but finally get through and walk to the plane in sunshine with those beautiful mountains against a blue sky backdrop. Funny to watch the chinese on airplanes, they are SOOOO bad at following instructions and there is always (ALWAYS) someone who unbuckles themselves STRAIGHT after landing...EVERY SINGLE TIME! same thing during take off, they will often go to the toilet while the seat belt sign is on, so strange. the instructions are in chinese!! oh and its weird, they always have trouble getting their seat right, so you're always waiting for people to change. I'm not sure what it is about them, it happens everytime too! Think there are ways and means here that i am struggling with sometimes...well not struggling but it seems there is very little respect soemtimes (not always) for want of a better word, the common man. it really feels like everyman for themselves and soemtimes there are little manners or respect. Like queue jumping and playing their phone music out loud, smoking in public places even when it says not to, pushing and shoving their way down the street, YELLING into their cellphones everywhere (or just yelling in general), spitting and children tolieting everywhere (ON CARPET!). Perhaps sometimes the language means i am missing certain other customaries but i find myself getting really frustrated at the lack of consideration. The book i am reading atm, wild swans, is about the period under Chairman Mao and he did encourage people to NOT be courteous to each other, it was considered bourgeois. so perhaps this is a remnant of that. im not sure. other times they are surprising and respectful, and i am sure miss a lot...perhaps it is just my “western” standards.
Arrive Kunming and another battle to get train tickets...but we get there...18 hour train jounrey tomoro...on the top bunk! should be interesting!
Find a hostel, shared bathroom, meh. showers a bit pants but gooooood pressure and hot hot hot water, yummy! We have a look around kunming til we are compltely knackered but we have a good shop and its a nice city with good shops! Find the the funky uni part of town, will come back here tomoro, but get some english books...LOVELY! arn in heaven.
Dinner at Mama Fu's (like the name) warm warm beer (den had to get ice) but the food is good!

18th April – Shangri-la

Better sleep tonight and wake feeling really good! we got a name of a small nepalese village about 7km from roses yesterday and so after 4 attempts we find a driver who actually knows the place (apparently taxi drivers don't get outta town much) and after a bumpy ride on a metal road we arrive. no idea how we're getting back cos its a full on farming village, not even a general store it seems. The women are all dressed in traditional dress tho the guys are in jeans. we met a couple of kids, they all have big wide faces with red windswept cheeks and snotty noses but they're super cute and the little girl thinks dennis is very funny, they can only say hello and giggle whenever we say it back to them. Have a walk around, all the houses are big cream 2 storied jobs but they have the most colourful window sills and shutters. Theres a lot of the drying racks everywhere and we find lots of chickens and some very big bulls. Everyone we pass (its not much on this dirt road) looks at us like what on earth are we doing there but we get big smiles and hellos from everyone and they don't seem to mind us. one old farmer on a tractor tray just stared at us with his mouth open after we said hello. start a longish walk back to town but end up hitching a ride with a rich bloke in his nice SUV. Spend the afternoon chilling out and catching up on blogs etc in warm cafe. Couple of yaks kebabs and feel like normal food tonight so find somewhere “western” looking, its sooooo toasty and have a gooood burger. we had a chat to the singaporean ownder, he said its been soooo slow there since the tibetan trouble...most people head onto tibet after shangri-la. He also interestingly thinks that the government are watching the chinese muslim communities as well...thought it apparently if one minority group can do it, so can others and they haven;t always been treated well...also worried that they could have a lot of help from neighbouring islamic countries. Who knows.

17th April - Shangri-la

Another bed hard to get out of but we'd been warned by the people we hd met the last night that it was bloody hard to get up and they reckoned (hoped) the cause was the altitude. Went for a walk to a monastry in the town. They have this massive prayer wheel there which we can see turning from our bedroom window. you have to walk it around 3 times clockwise and it DEF helps having a lot of people to do it! just a walk up the steps to the monastry leaves me completly gasping for breath. Inside the monastry the rooms where they pray are so colourful and full to the brim of colour with flags and paintins and gold everywhere, its really pretty and feels happy. the pictures of hell on the outside are not so happy...it doesnt look good!
We mish into the new town to pick up a present for dad – saw someone with something last night (obviosuly i can't mention it cos then he'd know what it is!!) and it cracked us up...the finnish guy had brought one too. So after this big walk around den's not feeling so hot and we're both completely knackered. You feel so stupid and lazy and putz but its so hard walking and talking that we're both silent and the small hill and stairs to our room requires a good 5 minutes sit down to catch our breath! We have a rest and then head out to the big monastry which is a couple miles outta town. Catch an old ricktety bus, th driver looks like he slept in his clothes and just rolled outta bed, this is completed by fag hanging out of his mouth. we add our 2 yuan to the literal cardboard box of other 1 yuan notes and do actually end up at our destination! The monastry is surrounded by a town with traditonal houses nd once again there is a lot of colour inside and gold paint. Its not opulant but just rich with colour. The walls on the outside are painted a shade of orange to look almost gold. The scenary is beautiful, all round are tall tall peaks, snow capped and you can see small prayer flag areas, like you always see on documentaries, dotted aorund the hills. Theres a few in town too. The monks are hanging around and seems to be a pretty peaceful life to be a monk! dennis checked out the kitchen, it was men only! he said it was nice and warm and smelt good! its pretty cold!
Head back to town den has discovered the Yak kebabs in the square. We sit and grb a couple of these and they are GOOD! nice and spicy yak ment intertwined with peppers. Yak meat is pretty good...mostly like beef but slightly different taste. and we headed to rose's cafe where apparently they have the best hot chocolate...and they do! YUM, its chocolate melted and milk! well good. We went to the square and at7:30 every night all the women of the town and quite a few of the men danced tradtional dances, in a big circle..music is played from speakers nearby. its nice and more and more women finished whatever they are doing and come to dance. Even the guys, unsually bit older are having a good time. Has a good community feel. Dinner we found a cosy place and i got Fried beef dumplings....they were sooooo good. They taste just like the sausage rolls you could order at primary school, i have a gooooood time eating again! dancing in the square is almost over, it goes for 2 hours and by this time the circle of people is taking up the whole square! we go back to our room and put on our electric blanket and get all warm and cosy. Even lying down you find your breathing is slightly funny!

16th April – Lijiang -Quaitou (Tiger leaping gorge)– Shangri-la (Zhongdian)

We took a bus today to tiger leaping gorge which was on our way to shangri-la. Since we are not trekkers (or me rather) we decided for a quick squis rather than a 2-3 day hike, tho apparently its quite easy. The bus ride there is slow and windy, feeling not SOO good at the end, but negotiate a ride to the gorge via a cellphone with very good english who then relayed back to a taxi driver...good system! went to lookout and got good views and photos of the gorge, its really beautiful, but was stinking hot so glad i am not spending long out here!
Bus to shangri-la (after a stressful (me) wait for one!) was amazing as we climbed through the mountains and passed villages of wooden houses, yaks and very woolley cows and the big drying racks that scatter the countryside. it looks very harsh and barren, you can tell there is snow here for a lot of the year and smoke trickles from the chimneys. Massive drops on one side down to big gorges..looks like they are building some dams for electricity. Guess you can criticise the gov for this but with the climate out here, these peopl ereally need electricity! pass people herding goats and woman sitting and talking. All the women are in traditional dress like in lijiang, but with big turban like pink scarfs on their head, to protect from the sun and wind and keep them warm i suppose!
Arrive Shangri-la and traipse around and find our hostel. Thankfully the town is not very big cos i'm getting breathless! Find a small place for dinner and i have a excellent meal of beef and potatoes cooked with garlic, ginger and not-too-spicy chillies! Then spread with pita type steamed bread on top...was fab and perfect for the cold weather! Get chatting to this finnish couple and trade advice and several beers. a good night and great to chat to people who are thinking and experiencing similar things!