Week 15 - Tibet

Our route through China and Tibet

Hangin with the locals

Potala Palace

Chillin by the lake

Yakity Yak

On the way to see Mt Everest - its the tall one in the background

Tashidele everyone!!!

Concluding our China trip; have a look at the map on the email and you will see where be have been travelling.

We have just finished an incredible seven days in Tibet, and it was definitely one of the best experiences of our trip so far!

Tibet is a very strange and unique place. Firstly, Tibetans are one of the biggest groups of people in the world without their own country! As they are ruled by China, it's not the kindest type of landlord...Walking through Lhasa kind of reminded me of pictures or movies when Germany occupied countries in the 1940's. The military is everywhere and carrying huge machine guns on every corner. I certainly feel for the Tibetans. In addition, there are snipers on many of the rooftops, regular patrols of soldiers in riot gear. The people seem to be nice and simple, spiritual and nomadic people. China being a communist country also employs many of Stalin's tricks of monitoring what people say and dealing harshly with anyone speaking poorly of the regime. The temples typically more than 1000 years old, are beautiful, but irk me as the locals all give money to the hundreds of shrines, and I'm told most of this goes to the Chinese government rather than the community, monasteries or temples. Thus they are kind of keeping the people poor while funding the military, certainly partially through these donations. I'm not sure why people continue to give money.... On top of this the Chinese are trying to erase the Tibetan history. We were in one temple 1200 years old which were the walls (depicting Tibetan religious history) was just painted over...

So how do you travel to Tibet and see all this loveliness; well, unless you are Chinese, you need to go on an organised tour. And they check your permit on a daily basis. From what I saw, I do not see any way a foreigner can travel in Tibet without the tour group - We were very lucky having 5 fun people in our group!

So what did we eat there - Yak, Yak and more Yak!! If you're wondering, what's a yak, see the picture on the email; its the animal Marina is sitting on; no she didn't eat it after... :D

Even with all the government hubbub, it's still a phenomenal place to see and an hour in Tibet will amaze you for years to come!

So where did we go;

Lhasa > Shigatse > Everest Base Camp > Giangmu > and now Kathmandu

Monday: ALTITUDE - We arrived in Lhasa 3500 meters (over 10,000 feet) via plane which is not the best way if you are interested in acclimatising first. I'm told its the highest city in the world! So after we checked to the hotel, it hit us. Somewhat of a drunken and dizzy feeling and no it wasn't the wine on the plane ;D Its certainly a strange situation and after food and rest it went away. Just in time for the night as we hit one of the local bars.

Tuesday: Wow LHASA - This city is utterly amazing and our tours around the monastery's was quite enlightening - with the money donations being outright counted by what we expect are fake monks assisting the Chinese. That being said, the people around were so friendly and we managed to have a bit of fun chatting with them. They loved Marina's blond hair and were playing with it.. We certainly visited at an excellent time as about half of the nomads or country people were coming to Lhasa for the winter. So the city was buzzing with excitement and the Nomads are always in traditional dress so lots of amazing colours.

Wednesday: Potala Palace - If you have ever seen a sight of Tibet, you will mostly likely have seen the palace that sits above on the hill. Its the picture of the palace we are in front of. Its a beautiful place and full of hundreds of holy rooms with shrines dedicated to budda, the dali lama, and monks.

Thursday: Tibetan club - We started our journey out of Lhasa on our way to Mount Everest. This day we passed through the mountains along beautifully turquoise green lakes at 4500 meters (14,000 feet) arriving in Shigatse. Along the way we passed a holy river which is one of the ways Tibetans are buried.. Well not really buried, they are tossed in the river. Thankfully we didn't see any bodies. The other way is to leave the body on top of the mountain for birds... So I tried really hard not to die in Tibet...Not my ideal choices... That night we went to a Tibetan nightclub; which was pretty fun as it was pretty much a show with Tibetan dancers and different skits... The crowd was entirely Tibetan so it was fascinating to see a show like this that's not for tourists.

Friday: Tibetan Hospital - Before you worry, I'll tell you now, Marina and I are fine... So this day we were driving to the Mount Everest Base camp at 5200 meters (16,000 feet). This isn't really that high considering the mountain peaks at 8848 meters (27,500 feet). So on the way we had to go over a very high pass and one of the girls in our group had trouble with the altitude so we needed to turn back and take her to the hospital. Driving, although slower than flying is a fast accent and can cause trouble. After seeing the hospital, let me say, I never want to go in another 3rd world country hospital again. She and her fiance stayed there for the night and we carried on just being able to see Mount Everest with the sunset! More on Everest below. We stayed just before Everest Base Camp (which is where the climbers start) at the Rongbuk monastery. The temperature inside the room alone was probably -10C (15F). We put about 4 blankets on top of us and slept not only in our clothes, but with our jackets, hats and gloves... It was miserable.

Saturday: MOUNT EVEREST - When seeing this beast it was all worth it! We got up to see the world's tallest mountain at sunrise and get our pictures. We hiked up a small hill next to Everest to get our photos. There the wind was so strong, it nearly blew the camera out of my hand. Within 10 minutes both my fingers and toes were numb! It was FREEZING!!! But I couldn't really care as we were seeing a site I have wanted to see for so many years. Everest is gorgeous. It looks just like what a mountain is supposed to look like with the triangle top. The mountain was still about 3km (2 miles) and as much as I wanted to go climb up it (a bit) I didn't have the $25,000 which is required for a permit to climb even slightly up it... She would be worth it though as its a beautiful mountain....

Sunday: Crossing the boarder - On Sunday we were leaving Tibet. The way to leave Tibet and go into Nepal is via the Friendship Bridge. A bit ironic as there are soldiers up and down the bridge carrying machine guns. I guess China is a bit worried about big bad Nepal. :D Going into Nepal was crazy. Being separated by a 50 meter bridge, 2 hours and 15 minutes for a time change, and the militia, its night and day apart. Nepal gives me images of what India will be like; very chaotic! So we are now in Nepal and getting settled. That night while drinking Everest Beer, we watched Arsenal smash Manchester City 3-0 (English Premier League)! Certainly a good cap to the night!

So what is next for us; Since we have been in Nepal we have been making preparations for the trip, buying our flight to Bangladesh, sorting our Indian visa, and arranging our permits for trekking. We leave tomorrow for Pokhara which is near Annapurna. We will be trekking the Annapurna circuit; well maybe not all 202km (125 miles), as we are trying to stick to 7 days, but we will see.

Until next time,

Dan and Marina

Week 14 - China

Its gotta be the world's tallest Budda!

The Sea of Clouds!

Try fishing in this lake - the fish would see you coming from down the road..

Perfect Pandas

NEEHOW!!!! This is our final post from the INCREDIBLE COUNTRY OF CHINA!!!!

And let me tell you, this has been an extraordinary experience! When we came here we really thought this place would be tough to travel, given we speak about 10 words of mandarin; well maybe a few more, but nothing really useful. China is now very geared up to tourism and it’s quite easy to travel around, order food, find accommodation, sites, and party!

Something I heard which is so true about China:
- The only thing with four legs a Chinese person will not eat is a chair and the only thing with wings they won’t eat is a plane!
- If Adam and Eve were Chinese, we would all be in the Garden of Eden because they would have eaten the snake!

So just to sum up a few things about China as we are leaving this great adventure in the homeland of Chairman Mao;

China is not one country; each of its 32 provinces is kind of like a country. For example, they usually have about 20-75 million people in each one and on average a province is about the size of a European country. Each with its own special cuisine, sometimes language, sometimes currency (Hong Kong, Macao, and they would say Taiwan), topography and people. Just to elaborate a little bit, China is a serious melting pot; not quite like the States, but more of an Asian melting pot. It has about 50 different ethnicities. So when you go to Japan – Japanese people look pretty similar and can easily be distinguished if you know what you are looking for. However, Chinese people look very different. Han is the major ethnicity and they are the most common race by a long shot (another you would know is Tibetan). Let me tell you a bit about cuisine. You know how people say Chinese food in the West is different than in China; well that’s partly true. Cantonese food is from Hong Kong and that is basically what the West calls Chinese food. Each of these provinces has their own special dishes and many of these things are DELICIOUS! One of my favorites is Sichuan where we are now. Stealing a line from my guidebook; “People come to China for food, but they come to Sichuan for flavor” – this is absolutely true; its seriously good and spicy! For topography, well, let me say you do not need to be a nature lover to be awestruck at the beautiful scenery China has to offer – have a look at the pics and google some of the national parks we visited; its truly amazing, but as I mentioned they have a fair amount of people in China so often you do share these sites with many others. However, the Chinese do not tend to get off the beaten path, so its very easy to separate yourself.

LADY GAGA – If I had a Chinese Yuan for every time someone said Lady Gaga about Marina I would have paid for our whole trip here. You don’t hear anything, but Chinese being spoken and then Lady Gaga and you see them pointing at her.. HILARIOUS!!!

So what have we been up to… Well let me tell you, this has been one of our best weeks… Not just because it was my birthday and we went to Hooters, but we did some seriously cool stuff! And that we went to Hooters, if I didn’t mention that! :D

This past week: Chengdu > Jiuzhaigou > Chengdu > Leshan > Emei Shan > Chengdu

Sunday – Pandas: So when I wrote you last we had just come back from seeing Sichuan’s famous Panda reserve! Yes, Pandas! As they are only up for about 2 hours a day, we had to get there for about 7am. This place has about 100 of the world’s 3000 pandas and let me tell you, it’s a pretty cool thing to see. If you are an animal lover, it’s worth the trip from St. Louis just to see this place. They are absolutely gorgeous playing around fighting, eating their bamboo shoots, and it seems they are acting for the camera, but apparently it’s pretty normal behavior; other than they are more used to humans. That night we went to the Chinese Theatre and watched the actors change masks, almost magically! Pretty cool stuff! And most importantly, this day we sorted our trip to Tibet! So we were very pumped that we would be going to the controversial place which is meant to be one of the gems of Asia!

Monday – Bus: As the roads to Jiuzhaigou National Park are dangerous (frequent earthquakes have almost pummeled some parts of the road with boulders) we needed to travel during the day by bus. Nothing better than a 12 hour bus ride to liven the spirits! 

Tuesday – The Land of Turquoise Lakes: Well, this place was really worth it. The Chinese rate Jiuzhaigou as one of the country’s top 3 national parks and I can absolutely see why. The park was littered with waterfalls and crystal clear turquoise lakes. When I say crystal clear – it is like out of this world; you can see the bottom of the middle of the lake! It’s unreal, sometimes about 30 feet (10 meters) deep! And the color bluer than the Caribbean sea – Google this place – it’s really this beautiful; we also have a picture on the email.

Wednesday – Bus: Well, I thought the last bus ride was bad, but this time on the way they had closed the road due to road works – so we had to go around and had a 14 hour trip back to Chengdu , but I’m just glad because I made it back for my birthday the next day :D

Thursday – My Birthday: Firstly, as everyone in London knows, I like a big party for my birthday – I’m sure many of you can remember the hangovers from the last one in the German beer hall! ;D So we had a nice lazy day to start. I decided my main present would be western food today. As we have had about 2 or 3 western meals the entire time this would be a real treat! After a big American breakfast with bacon, eggs, and hash browns, we went shopping – actually for Marina :D she needed some warm Tibet & Nepal clothes. However after that it was back to me, so we went for some afternoon drinks in Shamrocks pubs and played a bit of pool. That night we went to Hooters from some delicious American grub! Of course indulging in their world famous Chicken wings – although we ordered half of them Sichuan style which is hotter than anything I’ve had at Hooters in America! Later we went back for some beer pong at Shamrocks! Definitely a fun night – and a great way to spend my 28th Birthday ;)

Friday – Worlds Biggest Budda: I wasn’t up to waking up so early, but we caught the 0840 bus to Leshan to see the world’s biggest Budda. This statue was 71 meters tall and certainly worth a visit! Even his toenails were probably longer than a small car! After we travelled to Emai Shan to prepare for our next day accent of Mount Emei!

Saturday – Mount Emei: When I’ve mentioned climbing mountains on the past blogs, let me tell you, those were all easy! Including Mt Fuji compared to what we did yesterday! Sitting here with my legs aching, I feel very accomplished. So just to explain what Mt Emei is, it’s not just a mountain, but is a Taoist holy mountain. The mountain is full of monasteries and temples and you can stay at many of these. So most people hike a bit and stay somewhere on the mountain. We had a different objective – to get to the top the same day! Yes, we are a bit ridiculous sometimes and also competitive when we heard others only making it half way in a day. So with all of our strength and courage we legged it up probably 10’000’s of stairs (Taoist mountains are full of stairs strangely) past aggressive monkeys, and 32km (20 miles), and 9.25 hours later, we were at the top. Just to clarify this accomplishment, it wasn’t just 32km up to 3100meters (10,000 feet), it was up and down a lot; hence the distance. Seeing the sunset last night was priceless. And the Tsingtao beer watching this; yes I had to give in; they didn’t have Heineken up there . We stayed last night on the top of the mountain in a nice hotel, but without heating and this place was posh – just seems the norm up there. Although this morning it was so foggy that we couldn’t see the sunrise, but forget that as we are still so pumped we did this mountain in a day that we are on a high!

With my fingers hurting, I think I will leave you with this as I’m already excited for Lhasa, Tibet tomorrow. Our flight is at 9am so another early morning – after all, this isn’t vacation as I said before :D

AND let me tell you the exciting part; after Lhasa we make our way to………………MT EVEREST! Yes, in a week, we will be at the Mt Everest base camp!!! Before you get worried, we are not going to climb it… all the way, maybe a bit :D So we have one week in Tibet and then we go across the border to Nepal!

Zajian – see you next week!

Dan and Marina

Week 13 - China

Me Bridge Jumping!

More Rice Terraces

Crusing the Li River

Marina out for a cruise

Typical Chinese long distance train


Neehow - Big hello from Chengdu, Sichuan, China! AND Home of our NEWLY “UN”censored blog..

We have been all over the place this past week and it’s been hard to even keep up mentally with the numerous hours of travel.

Here is the place I usually tell you something about the country. This week I figured we would have a slight change; I’m going to tell you a bit about the normal day for us and what we do…..

Our backpacks – we have one big one each; is roughly about 18kg (40lbs). I also have a daypack which weights about 4kg (6lbs) holding our journals, guide book, reading books and the essentials, IPOD, pocket knife, camera, etc. When we chose to go somewhere, we either simply go to the bus or train station and show them the name of the place. Typically we try and get the hostel/hotel to write it on paper – such as the date, time and location. These hostels are a dream, as mid level hotels can be pretty bad for help – many times only speaking the local language. Hostels in the countries we have been to are geared up for info.
We either book our accommodation from flyers in hostels, our guide book, or from a hostel website. From there we get the bus, walk or take a taxi.
Ordering food is quite simple; we have a Point It book so if the menu is in a different language and we can’t read it, we just show them chicken, noodles, rice, etc… usually is not a problem and pretty straight forward.
The foreigners we meet fit one of three criteria in this order; English teachers, Tourists, students. Its very rare to find anyone out of these 3.
We now seem very accustomed to things travelling like living out of a suitcase, negotiating for most things, and having to deal with dodgy taxi drivers. Some days are a pain and some days it just really comes together as you will read below. Today things have also come together with sorting all the trips.

The past week's itinerary: Guilin > Yangshou > Kunming > Chengdu

Monday: Bamboo Raft on the Li River - In the still dark morning, we woke at an ungodly hour to catch our bus to the Li River for our bamboo raft trip. This was certainly not a mistake! The river cruise is probably one of the best in the world as far as scenery goes. As a matter of fact, it’s also the picture on the back of the 20Y note! See my picture attached of the lush green mountains. Having arrived in Yangshou, we quickly knew this was an incredible place, not just because of the awesome scenery, but this place was going to be fun. Yangshou is certainly a tourist town, but it is FUN - with a capital F! We stayed at a great hostel and quickly became acquainted with what seemed like every tourist in the town. It was also this day, that Marina learned how to ride a bike (on her own)! She did well, but I think a little more practice is needed before we bike the Himalayas - just kidding.. :D

Tuesday: Bridge Jumping - After a sleep in we rented scooters with 6 Canadians and made our way through the incredible rural scenery on the way for Dragon's Bridge. Yes, everything is called Dragon if you have been following the past few posts. The bridge was in a little town with restaurants and locals chilling around it. Rising like a dragons back above the ground, it sat approximately 12 meters (40 feet) over the water which was pretty deep. For each jump, all the locals would watch, cheer us on, and then clap once we surfaced after the SPLASH! Such a good time! That night was the Yangshou party, call it Warrensburg on a Wednesday night, IOS in the August, or maybe New Orleans, but that’s a stretch - this placed rocked! And our rooftop bar at the hostel, whilst showing the great scenery all around, also had a Beer pong table - what a great way to start the night and you can guess how it ended... VERY LATE!

Wednesday: Leaving Yanshou - it’s probably what a Heroin addict faces when quitting. You just don't want to.... it’s all too good, but we had a schedule to keep and whilst we could spend the next year in Yangshou we went to Guilin to get the overnight train to Kunming, Yunnan. We had bought the tickets already and thought it also would be good for our health to hit the road - Yes, I must be getting old! The train ride was ridiculous as the train occupancy was twice the amount of seats they had. Luckily we had booked seats a week prior, but it was still rough.

Thursday: Kunming Hot Pot - Well, we have the rain again, I say have as it hasn't been sunny since Wednesday :( Kunming looks SO fun, but having been soaked with the rain for being 20 minutes outside we didn't want to venture to much further. We went to a nearby hotpot restaurant and ordered the spicy broth. For those who don't know hot pot, its simple; there is a pot of liquid on a burner on the table; to our surprise, the spicy type, had at least 1kg (2.2lbs) of finger chilies in it. Now most of you know, I love spicy food and can handle it for the most part, but this was sick. We ate our food, but with the boiling water all juices started to evaporate and it was left with something police departments use to fend off criminals! Nonetheless, we finished our food :D

Friday: Changing direction - Having seen the forecast for Yunnan which said rain for the next week and our plans consisted of outdoor activities, we decided to get the heck out of Dodge! So we caught a train that night to Chengdu, Sichuan province. We chilled in the day, played pool with a few fun English people we met the night before and then caught the train. This was our first sleeper, a soft one as we could only get seats before. I guess that’s what happens when you have 1.2 billion people; and its probably more like 1.5 billion, but we won't get into that now...

Saturday: The Leg and Whistle – Having arrived in Chengdu we were ready for a good night out. The Leg and Whistle was a fun bar celebrating its 3rd birthday so we met a lot of fun and wild people. You know how you get on fire playing pool; that was me last night! Not to brag :D

You will hear some incredible stuff we are doing today. Marina is dying for me to tell you, but I think we will wait until next week ;) sorry…

So what is coming up for us; tomorrow we go to Jiuzhaigou National Park, then we celebrate my birthday back in Chengdu (Oct 14th) and then to Emei Shan for more mountain hiking. Great news today, we managed to find a decent trip to Tibet and will leave in 8 days! This is a huge relief, and I just booked us a week in the Andamen Islands diving for late November :D

See you next time!

Dan and Marina

Week 12 - China

Zhangjiajie National Park - or shall I say Avatar?

Twin Pagodas in Guilin

The Dragons Backbone Rice terraces

Feelin hot hot hot!!

Neehow from Yangshoo, China! - Home of our censored blog..

We have had a pretty wild and wet week going from China's Hunan Province to the Guanxi province.

You may wonder, are we getting tired or bored... Wow, everyday seems like a new adventure and the time just flies! As we approach our 3rd month travelling it only feels like we have been away for 3 weeks, but it seems like we have had more than a year's worth of superb experiences! Marina and I are doing very well and healthy.

So enough about us, lets talk about a truly interesting topic - CHINA!

Just a few things we have found over this past week;

Firstly - Did anyone know China has a pretty high population??? I guess I heard it somewhere before coming here :D , but in seriousness, we have really noticed it now as October 1st was Chinese National Day; so most people take the week off. As a result, the beautiful locations we have gone to have been a BIT busy to say the least.. But we have had some lucky help (which you will hear about below)...

Second - China is expensive! The days of China being like Thailand, Vietnam, etc are over! National Parks are about $40 each to get into and other sites can be about $15, so seeing the area really adds up. However, food can be very cheap if you eat local food, which we do. During the week long national holiday, it is much higher; with many things being a similar cost to the US.

Third - Hmm I didn't want to say this, but China is the land of spitters! If you have a squeamish stomach, you will not like the constant sound of someone clearing his throat and then spitting, many times next to you. Marina has not been too impressed; especially when I used the excuse; when in rome! :D

Last - Another point I didn't want to say, but can't help; Chinese beer is the worst in the world! I've been to about 80 countries and in every place (excluding Brunei where they don't sell beer), its all been drinkable and decent. China's beer is anywhere from 2.5% - 3.5% qualifying it in my opinion as O'Douls (non alcoholic beer in the States). So for the first time in a country, I'm rejecting local beer! And as a result, we have left many nice restaurants to go next door, down the street, or to another neighborhood to have a beer with dinner... I tell them, if its not at least 4% its not beer.. They believe me when I tell them its a European standard :D

So what have we been up to;
Changsha > Zhangjiajie > Dehang > Fenghuang > Guilin > Yangshoo

Monday - Hunan: We arrived to Changsha Hunan in the evening and even with the rain, we ventured out and found a decent restaurant serving a local variation of Dim Sum. One dish we accidentially picked was cow stomach - definitely not pork as it looked on first glance.

Tuesday - Typhoon Fanapi is following us: Despite the hard rain we took the bus to Zhangjiajie to get to the national park. As it was 3 hours away, we hoped the weather would be different or change and we could do some hikes in Zhangjiajie/Wulingyuan National Park. Unfortunately on our arrival, it didn't stop, nor did it stop the rest of the day, so we decided to stick close, we had some food and chilled. At the bar near our hostel they didn't have any beer over 3% so we didn't do anything exciting.. sorry.

Wednesday - Avatar: You have all probably seen Avatar; I was most likely the last one to see this of all of you reading this. I heard the hype and didn't want to see it until Marina forced me. After seeing it, probably like many of you skeptics, I liked it. It was a bit cheesy, but a fun film to watch! So why am I talking about Avatar. The one thing I would bet you don't know, is where was Avatar filmed.. Some would say it wasn't set in earth and it was a made up planet. You would be right and wrong. It was filmed on earth, but it was meant to be another planet. So plain and simple Avatar's scenery was filmed in China in the Zhangjiajie/Wulingyuan National Park. This day we were very lucky, the rain stopped at 9am so we went to the park and ohh am I soo happy. Let me tell you something; This National Park, may be the BEST and most BEAUTIFUL place I've ever seen on earth! Of the pictures, its the one with Marina. So what is from Avatar; all the floating mountains, besides floating, they are identical to mountains here. They have hundreds, or maybe thousands of these mountain shards growing upwards covered in green - its purely gorgeous! Google it!

Thursday - Dehang minority village: After the National Park we took a bus and a taxi to get to the small village of Dehang which is home to a local minority population. No I'm not being racist, its what China calls it and the minority people in the villiage and others we have met, just simply say we are the Yao people, a Chinese minority.. In the morning we started trekking and walked to a gorgeous waterfall over 100 meters high (310feet) which we were able to walk behind! After this we made our way to the town of Fenghang which is a great place to see. Its a river town with bars/restaurants lined along it and at night they are all illuminated flouresently. We had a great time playing circle of death with 10 Chinese people that barely spoke English and would say anything when I was able to make rules. I can't say what they said, but it was pretty funny - yes, I may be a bit evil! ;D

Friday - Sleeping bus: This day we were headed to Guilin in the Guanxi province so we had a long day travelling. And we didn't even know how it would go as this was October 1st - National Day, one of the worst days to travel in the year. After we completed our first bus journey, we were hoping to catch an overnight bus to Guilin. Luckily, we bought the last 2 tickets and experienced our first Chinese sleeper bus. This would have been nice, well it was nice, but the beds were for Chinese people: essentially, we needed about another 6-9 inches to lay down (18-24cm) :D

Saturday - World's biggest cave: In Guilin we saw a few of the cool sights, the twin pagodas, which connect under the lake; hiking to a peak over looking Guilin and seeing the Reed Flute Cave. Being from Missouri, I'm used to caves. Not living in these, but seeing places like Meramec caverns. This cave was so big, you could almost play football in it - English or American! It was huge, and this was just the open area in it - besides this it had fantastic areas covered in stalagmites and stalactites!

Sunday - The Dragon's Backbone Rice Terraces: OUR FIRST DAY OF SUN FOR THE WEEK! Have you ever seen the images of Asia or more particularly Chine where its rice fields tiered on the sides of mountains. The Dragon's Backbone is one of China's largest rice terraces of this type. And its bloody gorgeous! So this was a bit of an adventure. We caught the 8am bus from Guilin to Longshen and then a shared taxi to the village of Dazhai. So here was our first major problem with the crowds; traffic was so bad we had to get out and walk the last 2km (1.25miles) to get to Dazhai. This was not the problem, the last bus to Guilin from Danshang was 7pm and as we arrived at Dazhai at 12:30. To put it in perspective, Longshen was about 200km (125miles) from Guilin; and as we had a trip to Yanshoo booked for 6am the next morning we had to get back - however we could. And the objective was to do the predicted 4-5 hour hike to Ping'an. This was the dilemma and knowing this we said, oh well and just went for it! the hike was phenomenal and we hiked through the tiers up and down! We finished the hike, exhausted 3.5 hours later (exhausted because we went super fast) and then found that we would not get to Longshen before 7pm. So saying a few prayers and checking with some locals we found a driver of a van who would take us straight to Guilin for a reasonable price! But we had to hike another 30 min down the mountain to avoid the 12km (8 miles) of gridlock! Happy days, we made it to Guilin!

Now, we are in Yangshoo and have had a great day getting here, but this story of Marina and her bike will have to wait until next week :D

Next, we are here for 2 nights and on Wednesday we get the train to Kunming, Yunnan province!

Until next time,

Dan and Marina