Month: November 2013

Caught the Metro direct to Hong Kong Island as we planned to do one of the designated street walks. The walk took along streets where traders were selling and wholesaling all sorts of dried products, mainly the expensive delicacies. Dried fish processed in a particular way that makes it very expensive. Birds nests, sea cucumbers, ginseng, reptiles, sea horses, chicken, fruit and nuts. Goodness knows who eats this stuff.
Other streets specialising in Chinese medicines, antiques and jade.
One thing there is not a lot of is old buildings, the whole place is “new”. We did come across a little Taoist Temple which is protected, incense being burned the whole time, great smell and atmosphere.
Decided to take the ferry across the bay to Kowloon for photo shoot of the Hong Kong Island skyline. Worn out and got the MTR back to hotel.
Hong Kong has Malls everywhere, there quality of construction, interior design and materials are fantastic. Shops within the malls are the same as anywhere though.
We love all the sky walkways where pedestrians have elevated walkways above the main streets, they all link with the malls, MTR stations, office blocks, banks and go on forever .

Up just after 4 am for 5 am pick up at hotel for transfer to Guilin Airport about and hour and ten minutes away. We arrived at the airport at about 6.15 to find a lot of people standing around outside, and soon realised that the airport was closed. Bizarre. Doors opened at 6.30 and the check in soon after. Guilin is a big airport with flights all over China. First flight out was 7.45 and ours was 8.00. We were upgraded to Business Class which meant more legroom and a curtained off compartment. Flight left a bit early and only took 50 mins to Shenzhen which is a huge airport.
Fifty minutes on a plane and 8 hours minimum on a bus, glad we decided to fly. Three metro rides, border control and coffee in Starbucks ( sorry Tom) and we checked into hotel about 4 hours after arrival at Shenzhen.
Great hotel, our room is on the 70th floor with a nice harbour view. A spot of sushi for lunch, a quick nap and we set off for Kowloon water front which is about a fifteen minute metro ride. Hung around for the laser light symphony looking across to Hong Kong Island. Not that great, the light show that is. It’s raining.

Apparently the Nina Tower where we are staying is the 7th tallest building in the world.

We’d decided on our last day in China to hire a car and driver and see some of the places it was too far to cycle to. We met Mark (English name) and set off at 11am. First stop was a tea farm about 30 mins away. We were first taken around the farm by Mark, showing us the tea terraces and walking through the farm.

Stunning scenery all day and it is very hard to capture with photographs

We were rubbish pickers as we had about three leaves in our basket, but some people from Hong Kong who are staying at our hotel had picked quite a pile. They are apparently going to share them with us later, when they put them in Soup or eggs! We’ll see what that’s like!
After picking we had a tea ceremony when they explained about teas as we tasted them. We ended up buying some of their own green tea!
From here we went to a view point overlooking the Li River. Bit of a hike up hill, but the view was worth it.

We kept meeting people from our hotel all day, spending the second half of it with a young German couple who’s own driver sadly did not speak English. From the viewing of the river we went to an old stone village. Mark took us around and explained quite a lot about the village. Bit like going through Coleford in the 15thcentury, but that’s how they were living now. Only the old folks are left, and some of them were as old as 70. Bit depressing on one level!

There is a huge area in these mountains that the villagers grow kumquat.They have only been growing these trees for the last ten years, the revenue apparently is vastly more than growing rice and they have therefore become comparatively very affluent. The groves don’t look very attractive because they cover all the trees in plastic for protection.

From here it was onto wait for the sunset over the Karsts. All together a really enjoyable day.

Supper at the hotel, going to taste what the Hong Kong folk have got for us. Off to Hong Kong tomorrow.
”
We are a couple of whimps because we decided we could not face the 7 to 8 hour bus journey to Guangzhou and then probably another 3 hours to get into Hong Kong from there and then finding our hotel arriving very late in the evening. So, we are flying instead as there is an airport in Guilin which is an hour and half away from Yangshuo. The flight time is one hour ten minutes, the only down side is that it is an 8.00 am flight out of Guilin which means a 5 am leave from the hotel.

Another day cycling. We’re really enjoying being out in the countryside away from most tourists. Each day we talk to the staff at the hotel and they help us sort out the route that we’ve chosen. Today we started at a village we’d missed yesterday, a couple of km’s up the road. It was a Ming Dynasty Village, probably a lot less Ming than Coleford! It was interesting to watch a man spreading out rice to dry in his front yard with a wooden rake. Also saw a couple of blokes up to their thighs in mud catching fish from ponds. They had scales, weighed them and sold them. Very fresh!

From here we returned towards our hotel, but crossed the river and cycled through farm land and villages. We reckon we’ve cycled 20km today, a lot of it on unmade roads. Bit of a massage, and the bottom was glad to get back!

We lunched at Moon Hill Cafe on steamed mushroom and Pak choy with rice, then cycled back.

Taking the shuttle bus into Yangshou at 5pm to have a beer, wander and probably stay for dinner

Another day spent on the bikes and on the river Yu Long. Hotel mapped an off the beaten track route for us to end up at the “quay” on the river to pick up a bamboo raft to be punted down the river.
We cycled through small villages, paddy fields, orange groves and small farmsteads. All the villages had lots of building works going on creating new and more modern housing and possibly knocking down the delightful old and characterful, but not functional, houses. But, nothing seems to get properly finished, lots of them in varying stages of construction and not being lived in. Yet, they seem to be building more and more. This seems to be the case in the existing cities and the “new cities” that just spring up out of nowhere, blocks and blocks of multi storey buildings and new wide roads which appear to be empty.

Having spent two and a half hours on our cycling tour, which we took quite casually because the scenery, although a bit misty, was stunning, we managed to find the spot to pick up our raft for the trip down river.
It’s quite organised because our bikes are transported to the place we end up.
The trip lasted about two hours, just floating down this very peaceful river surrounded by magical scenery.

We are are the top,5th, floor and have a lovely view from the balcony.
A very simple rural life going on around us. It’s delightful for us but not so sure it’s great for some of “them”