7. Crossing China (Part 7): Yangshuo 10:30PM

10:30AM

We watch a Chinese movie on the way to Yangshuo with English subtitles that was truly a hilarious movie.  John and I are going to try very hard to find it, if we can.

I feel an amazing amount of elation. This has been a tough crossing. ..

We recieve loud "Bye"s from all the Chinese teenagers and we step off into Yangshuo.

And again, we are deluged by touters.  Less touters, but more persistant.

We try to ask what movie we were watching, but the driver doesn't speak English and we ask the touters, who are real dicks and say, "He doesn't know" We argue with him that he didn't even ask the driver, but he maintains" He doesn't know."

The touter takes us to a nearby hostel that is semi-cheap.  We are trying to make our own plans, but two touters are now talking loudly around us trying to take us to their own hotel, so we can't hear each other.

Then the first touter lies and says we are on Xi Jie (a famous backpacker road) and so we follow him.  In his hostel, we see a huge map, bust out the Lonely Planet and realize that he had lied and that we were some distance from Xi Jie.

We walk outside and try to orient ourselves and they guy says, "Ok Ok I take you to Xi Jie- come in my car."  We hesitate as this is extremely shady.

Then the touter hits me upside the shoulder and yells "Come on!"

I yell right back at him and things could've gotten uglier but he seemed to immediately relent and he sort of slunk back to his car and drove off.

***

John find ourselves now in a paradise for backpackers.  Cheap hostels everywhere.  There are traditional Chinese music players everywhere, vendors selling masks, bars, restaraunts.  Xi Jie is truly a cool road.  Like Bangkok's Khao San road, but cleaner and friendlier.

We immediately find a very cheap hostel.  We trudge upstairs.  The sweet landlady asks to see the Lonely Planet to see if she was mentioned.  Sadly not.  She leaves disappointed.

We throw our stuff down and shout in glory!  We are somewhere!  We can put our backpacks down and relax.  We immediately go out and get something to eat (incidentally, it was duck and rabbit, whoo hoo. tomorrow we will eat dog) and revel in our travelling survival skills.

***

I feel an amazing amount of elation.  This has been a tough crossing.  Nearly 20 hours of travel, a couple really shady situations that worried me quite a bit, and hundreds of miles and we are now safely in Yangshuo.

If I never have to travel this way again, it will be too soon

In two days, we will leave for Hong Kong.