The Start of China

Ready to leave Vietnam and start on the next leg of the journey, Ciaran and I booked a bus to the north-eastern border crossing from Vietnam into China.  We crossed the border on foot.  It was quite interesting to go from the poorly organized customs stop on the Vietnam side, relatively chaotic with no real direction in a dirty, dingy building and then walking into the China entry building which was spotless and orderly.  It was a great way to start out, with the exception of eyeballing I got by the border official who called over an coworker and then her boss to compare my passport picture to my present apperance.  After crossing sucessfully we walked a ways to try and find a bus.  We were stopped along the way by a Chinesse school tour group heading to Vietnam, about 20 of them who wanted to practice their English and have their pictures taken with us.  It turned out to be a warm reception committee.  From the border we to a tuk-tuk (motorbike carriage) 20km to the nearest city where we hopped onto a bus bound for the city of Nanning, where we spent our first night in China.  Most foreigners traveling into China in this direction take a direct train to Guilin (easier but more expensive) so we were the only round eyes in the area as was evident by the head turning reactions we got walking down the streets.  With some help from a couple people who came to our aid we found our way from the bus station (outside of the city, pop 5 million, a small city here...) by local bus into the city center to the train station.  We found a cheap place to stay near there ($2.50 each) and explored a bit.  Got some great dinner for about a dollar and then wandered the streets of Nanning.  For a city I'd never even heard of it's an incrediably modern and developed place with lots of high rises and shopping complexes.  All topped off with a Wal Mart, McDonalds, and KFC (KFC is everywhere here!).   It was a cool first day in China.

The next day we caught a train for 6hrs to Guillin, another 5 million+ city, which is supposed to be beautiful but very overpriced.  We didn't stay more than half an hour before we caught a bus to the town of Yangshou.  Yangshou is a beautiful town tucked into dramatic landscape of massive limestone mountains.  It is supposedly a major backpackers town, but we didn't encounter too many.  That being said, it was the first place we met other white people in a day and a half...  Yangshou (like most tourist places in China) is not touristy from foreign tourism but from the ever growing domestic tourism of China's rising middle and upper classes.  That's all well and good, but the Chinesse tend to travel in package tour group style, and come by the thousands (literally, there's a massive amount of humanity here!).  At times it was difficult to walk down the street from all the people crouding the old cobble stone streets.

Within 10 minutes of checking into a little dorm room ($2/night each) we were down on the street and ran into our buddy Tim (kiwi) who we'd traveled much of Vietnam with.  We knew he was heading toward Yangshou, but it worked out perfectly that we'd arrived within an hour of each other.  Perfect.  The next day we rented bicycles and went for a long ride through the country side along a river.  Lush green rice paddies, little villages and always the dramatic limestone mountains around us and as far as the eye could see down all the side valleys.  A beautiful though hot and dusty day... Luckily for us the bikes were decent enough because we put them through some hell on the trail and paths we ended up taking.  We stopped for lunch in a little village with a big 600 yr old bridge across the river.  After lunch we jumped off the bridge (40ft-ish) and then continued our ride down the other side of the river.  We went until the path ran into the river and we had to pay a bamboo raft a couple Yuan to ferry us back to the other side...

That night, a friend from Vietnam, Anna (Russian born, living in England the past 10 yrs), showed up in Yangshou and joined in the fun for the next couple days.  The following day we rented some tubes and a little 'raft' to do some lazy floating down the river.  We floated about an hour, working more than relaxing, and decided to abort the mission as we'd only made it 1km with a head wind and nearly no current.  A good try and fun none the less.  We walked back through the town carrying our motley equipment and getting all sorts of funny looks...  That afternoon we climbed one of the surrounding limestone mountains and got some nice views of the area.  Then we retired to the street market where we enjoyed all sorts of good fresh food stirfried together and washed down with nice cold Chinesse beer (not to bad, really...).  We ate at that street market everynight.

For our last full day in Yangshou we took a local bus a couple hours out of town and went for an 18km hike through a beautiful valley along a different river.  Beautiful scenery, with more little villages along the way.  Lots of farming and all sorts of stuff (mostly rice, chilli peppers, and corn) spread out on to dry in the midday sun.  It was another enjoyable day out and about in the Yangshou area.

Heading out of Yangshou, Ciaran, Anna and I grabbed a bus and headed towards a place called the 'Dragons Backbone.'  Beautiful mountains with 600yr old terraces rising from deep in the valleys all the way to the tips of the hills, thousands of acres of terraces growing all sorts of veggies.  It's close to a harvest time so everything was green and lush, and made for beautiful views in all directions.  We spent a few days there treking around a bit, taking in the scenery and the local food.  Instead of staying in a pricey hotel we opted to stay with a local family, though it wasn't really 'with' the family.  Lots of locals in the small village of Ping'an, where we stayed, have been profiting from the recent boom in tourism there and building theyselves nice houses/ guesthouse/restuarants...  Our places construction was less than completed (you had a balancing act on boards to enter the place) so we got a really good price and we're very happy with ourselves.  It was a fun few days... and nights for that matter as it was full moon while we were there and we got to watch as the moon rose to bath the surrounding terraced valleys in an errie amber glow.  Pretty damn cool...

Anyway, gotta run... fun to be had.  Hope all is well wherever this may find you.  Thanks to those who still have the interest to follow along with what I'm up to.  I'd love to hear from everyone if you can find a spare second.

much love

evan