China - Monday 11th May
It’s 1:15pm , back home in the UK it’s 6:15am , people are just waking up.
We had a bit of a trek last night to the train station in Guiling. It’s the hard sleeper option for us with each numbered train carriage divided into 20 or so door-less rooms each with 6 suspended beds – 3 on each side, one above the other. I had the top bunk and my nose was almost touching the ceiling of the carriage.
This part of the journey will be 13 hours long, overnight and with a delightful squat toilet for the whole carriage to use. We had the misfortune of being in the first sleeping compartment and therefore the closest to the toilet and free movement of people during the journey, also the toilet area which was housed in the interconnecting section of the carriages also double up as the only smoking area on the train – wafts of disgusting smoke would flow through the carriage. Later on this proved to be uncomfortable when attempting to sleep with intermittent air conditioning and the banging of doors. But in a way, it made for an interesting adventure, but one I wouldn’t wish to repeat too often – thankfully there’s only another 3 of these equally long journeys to follow!
We spent the first few hours of the journey sitting on the lower bunks chatting away. The first train journey was novel and exciting. I mostly listened to the Australians talk about ‘things back home’ and read my Lonely Planet guide book. At around 8:45 I climbed to my tiny bunk to lie down and listen to my Ipod.
Lights went out at 10pm just as I needed to make the walk of shame to the toilet, so I had to navigate my way through the carriage to the delightful squat loo – three times in the night I had to make this journey. I swear my body plays these jokes on me just when I’m comfortable! On my final return I fell asleep easily considering the air conditioning unit was near my head and the ‘click clack’ of the train was irregular enough to usually cause me concern.
We arrived, through bleary eyes at our destination at 6:30am and transferred to a small coach to drive for 90 minutes. The landscape along the route was amazing, stunning in fact. Rice paddy fields hugged the lower landscape on small terraces crossed by tracks, roads and irrigation canals. The majestic landscape consisted of high karst limestone peaks covered in small trees and shrubs occasionally revealing the streaked limestone beneath.
We arrived at our destination, Yanggshuo and walked the bustling streets to our hostel. Each alleyway offered an amazing view of street vendors selling noodles and dumplings. Tree lined streets, hostels, restaurants, small bridges over dirty looking streams and inlets appeared along every street vista. The hostel called the Explorer was great, an amazing double room for myself. The hostel was coupled with a place called MC Blues, a café and bar set up which also was ideally located in the best backpacker’s area of the town. The bar front opened out into the street where you could sit and absorb life as it waltzed by in many colours and languages. Naturally being a western led area there are many touts and beggars but a simple ‘no’ means such and they leave be, however one chap passed me by numerous times and would only say, ‘watch, watch’ to me whilst pointing at the five Rolexes strapped around his wrist.
It’s the evening, just sat on my bed for the first time…it’s harder than granite. Anyhow, today, after a bit of free time where I once again bumbled around the streets we headed off in two small buses for a relaxing bamboo raft ride down the river. After traversing pot-hole lanes and uneven bridges we arrived at a small concrete jetty and boarded fake plastic bamboo rafts with outboard motors, ready for our relaxing glide down the Li River.
Despite the wobbly boat and noisy motors the scenery was simply stunning. Those tall peaks took on a majestic array of monumental proportions, each unique, each random and other world like – I find it difficult to describe their beauty but was able to take many photo which in reference with this journal may do it more justice.
After the trip and ride home I grabbed a good, stodgy pizza (bit bored of some of the dumplings already). In the evening at 7:10pm we headed through the market to the edge of the river to board a noisy passenger sight seeing boat to watch a local chap use cormorant birds to catch fish. It was dark which was less than ideal for my camera but fun to watch the birds diving from a raft, seeking out fish. The fisherman had a light fixed to the front of his vessel similar in style to 1940’s arched lamps. The purpose was for us to see and also guide the birds to the front of his boat with their catch. Most of the time it attracted a heap of strange looking insects and moths which landed on every available surface.
The birds, despite their tied necks did well and appeared to only aim for smaller fish which easily slid past the throat restriction – clever birds. The view of this attraction was more thrilling and attractive to see on BBC nature programmes, in real life, in these particular conditions it could not compare – even the HSBC banking adverts painted a better picture. For some of the journey the fisherman was busy yakking on his mobile phone.
One great part of this trip was to see the streets of Yangshuo lit up in neon lights and also to see some of the karst limestone peaks which were spot lit soaring almost vertically around the town like great looming gods looking down. After the boat trip I joined the other travellers for a few beers which were delightful in this thick, humid air. Some of the Australians decided to order a dog dish from the menu. The dish arrived, quite a lot of it too, rich brown in colour not dissimilar to beef in appearance. They tried a few bites before deciding it was ‘quite gamey’ and left the main bulk of it. It’s nice to know that dog didn’t die for nothing. Tomorrow I think they’re ordering roasted bamboo rat.
