Day 143 - Dali, China.

Our train safely made it to Guilin and the first thing we did when we got there was to find a bus out. It's not that we took an instant dislike to it, it's just that we'd planned on heading out of town to Yangshuo which is more rural and a much nicer place to stay than Guilin which is pretty much a big old concrete and white tiled monster. Outside Guilin station we were shuffled onto a bus straight away by two very efficient old girls who took our money and issued tickets before we could draw breath and an hour and a half later we were there in Yangshuo.

We're getting really quite good at negotiating the room prices now. The first hotel we tried started off with the rack rate of over 800 Yuan. By the time we'd finished, checked the room over, found there was no hot water and were walking to the next hotel on the list, the bloke was offering the room for 130 Yuan a night (about £13). The fact that the next hotel had in-room internet swung it for us and it was only 20 Yuan more; hot water too!

We did quite a lot of stuff while in Yangshuo. We hired bikes from the hotel and cycled to Moon Hill which is a big old arch naturally formed out of rock. It's a knackering climb up some very steep steps but worth it for the view. It's made more enjoyable by the army of little ladies that follow you all the way up trying to sell you bottles of water or Coca-cola. Their little hearts sank when we got to the top and pulled out a large bottle of cold water from my backpack. "Oh, big water." they said then one of them changed tactics and tried selling us some postcards while another started to explain to me that she likes to collect foreign money. I bet she does! We took a different route on the way back through some farmland and over unmade roads. Luckily the bikes had suspension.

In the old days cormorants were used by the fishermen to catch fish and we were taken out on a little bamboo boat one evening to see this spectacle. The fisherman takes a group of the birds out on his boat and ties a thread around the bird's necks just tight enough to stop it from swallowing anything bigger than a minnow. They are then set free to swim around and catch as many fish as they can before coming back to the boat to regurgitate them into a basket. I'm pretty sure this is all for the tourists' benefit nowadays but I still steered clear of any fish whilst eating out. Incidentally, while looking through the breakfast menu one morning, I couldn't help noticing stir-fried dog with vegetables, horse with noodles and sauteed frogs. I just had yoghurt and muesli that particular morning as my taste buds were feeling a little too timid.

Another day we spent taking a boat trip up the Li river as some of the scenery is just amazing. We were put on a bus at Yangshuo by the girl that we booked the tour with and told to stay on it until we are met by someone else. This was a normal, public bus that was full of locals and their numerous bags and boxes of luggage so we asked how will she know who we are. "You're the only two foreigners on the bus!" was her sarcastic reply. She had a good point. We arrived at Xingping to be greeted by an excitable little woman who rushed us down to the river bank to catch our boat. She was supposed to wait for us during our two hour excursion along the river and then take us back to the bus stop to return to Yangshuo. She clearly couldn't be bothered and gave us a bundle of money to do it ourselves. We didn't need her anyway.

The highlight of our stay was seeing the light show which the locals call "Impressions". It's an evening performance with over 600 people taking part and is set on the Li river with the mountains lit up as the backdrop. Boats float in and out of view with soothing Chinese music and singing while vast ribbons of red silk are moved around in the water to create blood red waves. It's impossible to describe and even harder to photograph but very beautiful to watch.

The worst part of our stay was the day we went to the Dragon's Backbone rice terraces. It's supposed to be a real genius piece of engineering that has taken place over generations to sculpt and terrace the sides of hills and mountains into layer upon layer of rice fields. Shortly after getting on the bus we were introduced to Oscar, our tour guide. A nice enough chap who, in turn, told us that we were in the safe hands of Mr Liao who was an excellent driver. He wasn't an excellent driver at all, he was a cocky little creature who had hair like he'd just got up and who's idea of driving was to use both the accelerator and horn with equal, generous measure. It was a white knuckle ride from the moment we left Yangshuo to the moment he misjudged a bend and crashed our coach into the barrier protecting us from the cliff edge. If we had been 1 metre to the left I wouldn't be writing this now, I'd be practising my harp scales and trying to persuade St. Peter to let me in. We got off very luckily and there were only three casualties; the driver's bravado, the coach which must've been a write-off and the poor woman in the front seat who smacked her forehead on the handrail at the time of impact. What was shocking were the two police cars that drove past and didn't even bother to stop, despite rubber-necking and the fact that it took over an hour for an ambulance to arrive which had no supplies on but thankfully whisked the woman off to hospital along with our tour guide.

Eventually another bus turned up with another guide that couldn't speak a word of English. She did start singing to us though, presumably to calm us down, but it was so shrill that it just put us even more on edge.

Sadly, by the time we got to the rice terraces it was so foggy that we could barely see over the railings at the top of the lookout point. All in all a complete and utter scary waste of time. To add insult to injury, when I complained in the office from which we booked it, the girl behind the counter just smiled and said sorry. I showed her the pictures of the wrecked bus I'd taken and that persuaded her to give us a generous refund of 10 Yuan each (about £1). Big deal. She then had the nerve to ask if I'd like to book anything for the next day.

We returned to Guilin on Sunday afternoon and booked ourselves into The City Garden hotel using our honed bargaining skills. We whittled her down to 180 Yuan for the night and the room was pretty comfy. There was something slightly dodgy about it though because as well as the usual complimentary shower caps and bubble bath, there were also vibrating condoms and hand towels in a neat little rack on top of the writing desk. Not seen that before!

Fortunately, we were only in Guilin for one night because there's really not a lot to do. We are now on another train heading towards Kunming where we'll try and find our way to Dàlî one way or another.

Beer index:
£1.81 per litre (Avg)