Guilin Travel in the Chinese New Year

We went into the caves without knowing we had beed paid for a tour by a pretty Chinese girl who tried her best to speak English but it was difficult to have a detailed chat. On the whole, the  Guilin tour was to let us know what the interesting rocks were meant to look like. Apparently one represented a plentiful harvest, another thunderous lion. The structure of the cave was interesting but it was hard to imagine what the structures were meant to look like.

Crown Cave

 The zoo was rather depressing and very cold. There was a camel which I insensitively named the cut-off camel as it emerged that it could not get up and you could not see his legs. I think I persuaded Rob successfully for all of two seconds that it had been cut.

That evening we explored the streets of Guilin to try and find the Hartle pool Vs West Ham football as it was Hartlepool's biggest game of the season and probably the same to West Hams. However our luck was not in and it got worse when we ordered a Hawaian pizza and contrary to the menu they put Banana rather than pineapple on it, which was pretty rank.

Li river

On Chinese New Years Eve (25th) we took a boat cruise up the Li River to Yangshuo as the scenery is meant to be very spectacular. The first part of the tour required a minibus ride for an hour, which was very very scary! Lets just say they seem to drive on the right but it doesn't really seem to matter and when there appears to be only room for one car but they manage to squeeze two cars at a high speed. I would like to put it down for special awareness but I think it was luck.

the beautiful scenery of Li river

We arrived at our boat and it was very common but we headed up the river seeing beautiful scenery and various fishermen. We also saw a dead dog which obviously was being prepared as a gastronome meal for Chinese New Year, which is the first part of China where I have seen dog on the menu. Everywhere else they have actually cared them as pets and are all well looked after.

We supposed the boat trip to be the last part of our adventure to Yangshuo but how we were wrong. We stopped the boat in the middle of no where but one woman appeared from nowhere with a motorbike and what can only be described as a trailer with seats. We squeezed six of us in with all our bags and zoomed off down the country tracks which fundamentally dirt tracks with pot holes. Holding on in the freezing cold we made it to a bus taking us to Yangshuo. The trailor seemed like it would flip over at any time.

As part of Chinese New Year we made dumplings in our hotel which were delicious and then headed off for a few drinks to bring in the New Year. We met Norea and Sian that we encountered in Xi'an so it was good to see some familiar faces. At mid night there were massive amounts of fireworks everywhere. I meant everywhere, which was pretty impressive. People were lighting fireworks from their hands and bangers were thundering within 5 yards of you. You would never get it in England due to the health and safety beaura crats but it felt completely safe until you gave a firecracker to an American who had no idea what they were doing.