Rich and Cat's Travels: Onwards from Chengdu

From Chengdu we headed to Guilin where we proceeded to hop on a bus to a fairly remote village called Yangshou. This village is popular with backpackers as it has stunning scenery and there is lots of activities on offer. After the two hour bus ride we arrived in the village and had to try and get a cab to our accommodation which was 3km outside the main village and was in some old farm buildings. The guesthouse was in the middle of some mountains and after checking in we headed out for a walk in the mountains before it got dark. We didn’t get too lost but we did take a couple of wrong turns and I even stumbled upon a snake before it quickly slithered off into the bushes leaving me speechless for a few minutes.

The following day we thought it would be a good idea to hire a bike to ride down to the far end of the river (about 13km) in order to catch a bamboo raft back up to our place (the raft it also able to carry the bikes). As Rich isn’t the most confident rider we considered the tandem bike (which was also cheaper than 2 bikes). After looking at the bike we decided what harm could it do! Well riding a tandem is very different to a bike, especially when you have someone like rich on the back. Anyway after several false starts we were off down the footpath towards the road, hoping we didn’t have to stop again for a while. It wasn’t long before we had to stop and look at the map and then think about starting off again which was slightly better but we did have a false start. Shortly after that we had to stop again to see if the dirt track was the right path and we did have a go at riding down it but we soon realised that was not a wise idea so we turned around and went the long way on the road. By the time we got back to the road and headed off again we had the start down and looked like professionals (in our head only, others still laughed at us). After riding through some very small villages and being scared by one busy road and lots of fireworks we made it to the rafting area and managed to barter a little to get a raft down the river. The raft essentially consisted of a couple of bamboo logs tied together with 2 deck chairs on them and a guy who uses a bamboo to push the raft along. The river is not the nicest colour but it winds its way spectacularly through some mountain ranges and villages and even has some little waterfalls that you have to go down which makes the trip a bit more exciting (although they are very little drops). There are even contraptions to help the boat get up the waterfall.

Once we finished on the raft we headed back to our place for a short break before deciding to head to moon hill which is a local hill with a hole in the middle. It was about 5-8km ride each way but by the time we got there we decided we could not consider walking up the hill so headed back home. We didn’t get to see much of the hill but enjoyed the ride but by now it was getting really hot and we realised we did not have sun cream on so we needed to get out of the sun for the rest of the day. We got back to our guesthouse in time to head back to the airport for our next flight, to Shanghai. Once we got to the airport, after the 2 hour bus ride back, we checked in and waited for our flight, however we were eventually told it was delayed and they didn’t know when it would take off. Eventually they shipped us to a hotel and let us sleep for 3 hours before waking us up and dragging us back to the airport for an hour before we boarded our plane.

When we eventually arrived in Shanghai we headed to the hotel that would be our home for the next 5 days and which was located just off the Bund which is a very expensive tourist area that contains all the large buildings in shanghai. We had a nap as we could no longer function on the 3 hours sleep and arranged to meet Paul in the afternoon. We spend the next 5 days hanging out with him and his friends while seeing the sites and having some fun. We went go-karting, went to see some art, went to karaoke (although we didnt participate and it did contain only terrible music!), did a room escape (which we managed to escape in the hour, although we are not fully sure how), went up the large building known locally as the bottle opener, walked around shanghai (and got lost, especially when taking short cuts), competed (badly) in a pub quiz and ate lots of food and drank a fair amount. We got to try some local cocktails made with Chinese spirits, eat some local dim sum and battled through the madness of the Chinese public whilst trying to remember that being English about it doesn’t help your survival chances.

Now back at the airport we jet set to our next adventure – Japan!