A fine example of a Karst.
I think we must have hit a cow en route or something!! The lights went on at 4am after we juddered to a sudden halt in the middle of nowhere, and there was a bit of frantic activity amongst the train staff. We stayed stationary for some time - maybe half an hour or so - before starting up very slowly.
You can tell from this that I didn't get a lot of sleep!! I think I managed to get a total of maybe two hours sleep on a journey of nearly fourteen!! I have to admit that much of my thoughts last night were punctuated by the same image. On Monday night I'd had a really vivid dream about the end of the world in nuclear holocaust (as normal); the British were bombing a Danish town (Brondby - dunno if it's a real town, I know it's a real Danish football team!), and I had to get there to rescue the girl literally of my dreams. Of course when I got to where she was working (in a video shop above a burnt-out cafe), I found out that the girl in question was none other than my penpal Kylie! So, while lying in bed on the train, I ended up thinking lots about her again. Oh well.
We reached the city of Guilin around 8am; the station there was just as crowded and hectic as in Guangzhou! We very quickly got into a large minibus that took us all the way to Yangshuo, which took about an hour and a half. The journey was pretty uneventful, and some of the party slept on the bus. I spent most of it chatting to Alan from Liverpool about stuff, whilst going at first through the almost shanty-town suburbs of Guilin, then through the countryside. The scenery was quite weird, full of "karsts" - tall limestone pillars/pinnacles - they looked kinda lunar maybe, and there were lots of them lining the Li River.
We reached Yangshuo mid-morning, checked into the hotel and then had breakfast at one of the many nearby cafe/bars that lined the street. Having said which, chicken fried rice is a most unusual breakfast LOL! The plan for the next few hours was to do a bike ride around the area - 'an hours drive', which is apparently only a couple of kilometres (I am maybe a tad obsessed with distances rather than times!). I was told however that I shouldn't walk it!! Meh.
I'd never cycled before; I've still never cycled!! I was kinda worried about this sector of the trip! They got their bikes and James had a brief, aborted effort to show me how to ride one! I think that if I'd had half an hour or so then I'd probably have been able to manage reasonably badly. But I didn't, so I couldn't! So Jane arranged for me to ride on a motorbike with sidecar seat attachment instead, more expensive (at 50 Yuan as opposed to 10 Yuan) but it was comfortable, easy, and it would get me around!
My driver didn't speak English (or French!) and I didn't speak any dialect of Chinese; this caused us no end of amusement on route! Laughter is universal! Anyway, she took me round on back roads through paddy fields (we stopped by one and I saw a small grass snake slither away from me into the grasslands) and let me see the local scenery. It was all very picturesque and quiet, I did feel away from it all.
But not for very long. No sooner had I stepped out to admire the view or to take a picture, than hordes of the local population descended on my location desperate to sell me postcards! A stony-faced ignorant and dismissive attitude didn't work 100% (persistent little buggers) but I managed to refrain from hitting any of them (which wouldn't have done much for Anglo-Chinese relations!) but I did manage to escape without actually buying anything!
We were headed for "Moon Hill" - a climbable hill whose top was shaped like a crater (apparently). I was first to arrive and had to wait around for the others, next to a tribe of youngsters (maybe children, maybe older) all trying to take money off me! They were however happy enough when I told them the rest of my group were on their way!
After maybe ten minutes they arrived; not all of them though as some had decided they weren't actually that healthy after all and had gone to a bar en route instead (!). So maybe eight or nine of us ascended Moon Hill - complete with Sherpa-like youngsters selling us water. This however, was seen as a necessary act; it was freakin' hot and a freakin' long way!!
We climbed to near the top of Moon Hill up a flight of seemingly never-ending stone stairs worn into the rock! We passed a couple of rock-climbers near the top, not my scene at all though a couple of the others were interested. At this point the hill sort of levelled out, we rested for a while and took pictures. This wasn't the *very* top, but most of the group decided this was high enough (they were too hot and too tired!). So only me, Alan, and Dan chose to ascend to the very top, up a trail path rather than steps.
The view from the top was pretty good, satellite dishes and distant mist notwithstanding. We could see the whole of the river valley stretching out for miles, and we could see the entrance to the Moon Hill site far below. Down an almost vertical rock cliff, that we decided not to look down too often! There were several different kinds of creature up there, very ornate butterflies for instance (and I profess to not being any good at Natural History), and we kept hearing some grasshopper-like insect all the way up the trail - Dan swore that it was following him!!
After spending some time up there, we descended and made our separate ways to a meeting point on the way back to Yangshuo town; a riverside bar! Almost everyone was there, including those who hadn't climbed Moon Hill. I couldn't stay for that long as apparently my motorbike/sidecar had to be returned by 3pm (and it was now 2:40pm). No problem; I didn't mind anyway as I was far too exhausted to even contemplate a beer!
Went back to the hotel, was intending to go to my room for a shave and freshen up, but as I was collecting my key from reception, Louise appeared at the doorway and said she was in the bar next door having a drink. I hadn't noticed her at the meeting point; but then I hadn't not noticed her either! Careless of me!
Seems a lot had happened to the cyclists. I left them behind not long after we'd seen the snake in the grass; apparently not long after that, Vivian had become unwell with heat exhaustion/heatstroke and the rest of the party had become as split as the Fellowship of the Ring!!
Eventually, however, we'd all made it back to the bar in Yangshuo, except Vivian and Radka. Louise was the most worried of the party about them, since she felt she was supposed to have gone back to stay with them (she'd been the last of us to see them); Jane just figured that they'd gone off with a local - Vivian could speak a bit of Chinese.
We chatted a bit about, uhm, stuff; it was suggested that I needed my hair cut. Having already had my hair cut some two to three weeks previously at my regular haunt in Old Hill (although I did figure that, at the time, it wasn't as short as normal!) I took the view that I didn't need it cutting, but the group were insistent. Hints were dropped for the rest of the night, mainly by Andy, the Odettes, Jane, and Louise, but eventually I caved in and agreed to it. The clinching argument I suppose was Louise offering to take me ....
We spent the evening having a lovely Chinese banquet on the top of a cafe at the far end of Yangshuo's street of bars (West Street - also colloquially known as "Foreigner's Street" owing to the numbers of [western!] tourists who go there). It was nice and warm up there, peaceful, under a starless night (mist or cloud, couldn't really tell). To one side was a forest with lights that illuminated, giving a kind of eerie effect. We had all kinds of proper Chinese food dishes, washed down with probably too much alcohol. Kathrin brought along a bottle of genuine Rice Wine, 37% and not to everyone's taste but I quite liked it.
And Vivian and Radka arrived back! Seems they'd done nothing more than sensibly waiting around, resting under shade, and slowly making their way back as best they could. No harm done in the end.
While at the banquet, I made a specifically timed call to my workplace (although it turns out I was actually an hour late!), to see how they were getting on without me. They seemed to be fine but I think they might have thought I was drunk??
We finished the night at what was fast becoming a regular bar for us - "7th Heaven", about four buildings away from the hotel. One of the waitresses, Betty, was becoming friendly with us in a sort of humourous way; lol we were sure that her and Dan were flirting!
