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Other entries in Yangshuo

Beer fish followed by blonde Israelis

I woke up at 6am again after a paltry 4 hours sleep and trudged out fo the hostel to Elephant Hill with Benny and Daz.  Turns out we couldnt get in for free, so we could have stayed in bed (thanks Benny), but since we were there and it was quiet, me and Benny went in anyway, but Daz trudged back off to bed.

Elephant Hill is a big limestone rock poking out into the Li Jiang river with a hole in it that makes it resemble an elephant.  To me it just looks like a big rock with a hole in it, but what would i know?  We walked up to the top and had a quick look around and there were some pretty good views over the city, but nothing spectacular.  By the time I had walked back down to the bottom, the place was seething with annoying chinese tourists in huge groups, blocking up every pathway, walking about 1mph and all wearing the same coloured crap hats.  God this was annoying!

The side of the river was lined with old Chinese folk doing Tai Chi all morning, which looked quite funny, although you have got to admire them.  You would never get oldies in the UK out at 6am doing exercise - perhaps this is why they live so long?

I had a quick walk around town to see the sights, but they were all very expensive for what they were, so I passed on most of them and wlaked around Sha Hu lake, with its two pagodas standing in the middle.  I had seen them the night before when they were all lit up (one being gold and the other silver) and looked much more impressive, and I was just about to leave when another Chinese tourist asked me to have my picture taken with her and the pagodas....there was a huge crowd and it was so embarrassing.  From now on I am going to downright refuse them, or maybe even charge them to have their pictures taken with me.

After being thoroughly underwhelmed with Guilin today, we all made to decision to catch a bus to Yangshuo at 3pm.  So after woofing back 2 bowls of pork dumplings for lunch, we boarded the bus to Yangshuo, which only took just over an hour.

Yangshuo is described as a backpackers mecca in the guidebooks, and they werent far wrong - the place is jam packed full of westerners - not that i am complaining or anything.  It is kinda refreshing to see lots of blonde haired girls again.  We were met off the bus by an army of touts, and we followed one to his hotel just down the road which would cost only one quid per night each for our own room with air-con and a TV.  When we got there, it was clean and had its own bathroom as well, so we checked in, regardless of the fact it shared the same street as four 'hairdressers', or brothels as we know them.

We had a short walk around the town centre and on first impressions, I really like the place.  The town is surrounded by huge karst limestone pinacles and the town itself is full of lively food markets and the 'western street' which is full of bars and western food joints.  As we were walking back, I found it quite amusing that loads of people were just playing badminton with each other in the streets, and they were all pretty good as well.  Now we know why they always whoop everyone in the Olympics.

For dinner we decided to pay a visit to the local outdoor food market where we resisted the temptation of eating semi-rotten hare, snails, rats, and a whole host of other dodgy looking meats and innards.  Instead we opted for the local speciality 'beer fish' (literally fish cooked in beer) along with a beef and a pork dish, just to be safe.  The food was quite good, although the fish was a tad dissapointing.....they dont know how to fillet them here apparently because i swallowed about 20 bones in the process.

We decided to go for a beer afterwards and found a bar with bottles for 50p as opposed to over a quid on the main westerners street.  After a few hours, we were approached by a little flower girl who wouldnt take no for an answer, evern though there were just three lads in our group, and so I ended up buying one and sending it over the street to what i thought to be an attractive blonde (Buxton style).  She later came over to talk to us with her friend, and it turns out the beer goggles had most definately taken effect (she was a 35 year old Israeli), so we played it cool and managed to shake them off pretty quick.  Aussies shouldnt mix with Brits....the end result is always the same.....drunkeness!  One beer turned into about 8 and Daz was hammered so we headed back about 1.30am, only to walk in the wrong direction and get completely lost.  We asked a few locals which direction we had to walk and got roped into paying for another motorbike taxi to our hotel (this time with 3 people on it).....it was yet again quite good fun.

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