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
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