So, it took me a while but now here's the rest of the trip to China:
Sleeeeping in and then a nice shower... well... kinda nice... the water was hot but there was no pressure in the pipe... so anyways... After buying our train tickets to go back to Hong Kong, which was surprisingly quick and easy (in Chinese terms that is) and took us only about a half an hour, we went through tha city in search for some breakfast... that turned out a little harder so in the end we made it lunch... so yummy- finnally back to real good chinese food that I've missed so much in Hong Kong! fried tomato with egg, fried potato slices, ... so good! Then we visited the 'Solitary Beauty Peak' and the surrounding palace. 'few' steps took us up the hill and up there we enjoyed a nice view over the city. The palace around it was nice, but after visiting all those numerous palaces in Beijing and Shanghai, it was just another palace for me. But of course this one was expecially great cuz it was built by the nephew of an emporer of the Qing dynasty... that sounds good doesnt it?! well... I doubt it. Anyways afterwars we walked all the way through the city on the way back to the hostel, hitting every single one of a few kilometers of sports shop which logos and names obviously faking Nike, Addidas or other brandnames. I got new fake but 'high quailty' t-shirt in the shop next to the shop which sold 'haiii quaity bag -is fake Plada (Prada) but is veely guud fake' ;) ... then I got some shoes yippiee.. new flip floppy kinda sandals... it must be a good day!! in the middle of the city we then found that the Chinese dont only fake the stuff tehy sell.. they even fake some sights! What? oh yesss... the one and only Louvre is where? no no no... dont think its Paris, cuz it is most definately in GuiLin - with some beautiful Pagodas and an ancient park just around the corner! nicccce!!
In the evening Verena joined us back at the hostel... and over some Card-drinking games we emptied the Hostels inventory of Bayleys and were *forced* to proceed with our ol' buddy Jack Daniels...
Next day started early, cause our boad from Guilin to Yangshuo was supposed to leave at 10... or at least the bus to take us from the travel-agency-shack/garage of our trust to the peer. Well... the tour was delayed by just an hour, obviously the river was tooo foggy for the boat to go... then the 'bus' (learned how to fit 8 people in a 5 seater 'bus') took us to the overly beautiful old town in the middle of nowhere (of course THE place to be)... were we had the one-time-opportunity to buy the most beautiful and unique, handmade, original fake artefacts ever seen for the best-discounted ripp-off-prices(because we are such good friends of the seller and *store*owner). Well, it actually wasnt so bad, really not.. I mean we just walked though the town watched the people and didnt buy anything.. but well.. then we finally left for the pier. Arriving, our 'tour guide' announced that he was hungry and so he treated us for some fried rice. nice of him! then we started out boat tour down the Li Jiang river and it was truely amazing. The mountains there just look so bizarre... they are mostly of limestone (Kalk) and have gotten their form through erosion throughout the last centuries. The most special mountains were of course pointed out to us by our only-chinese-speaking 'captain'... we passed by mountains with the creative names of 'five-tigers-catch-a-goat', 'an-old-man-push-a-mill', 'five-fingers-hill', 'apple-hill' and so further... of course the opposite hill then has the name 'old-man-watching-five-tigers-catch-a-goat-hill' or so... and obviously each single mountains has a legendary love story behind it - yes thats China!! We enjoyed the relaxing boat tour, took tooo many picturs of mountains which will now look all the same, but it was just so impressive, hard to find words of it again. stopping at a kind of stony-beach-shore locals were offering their special original fake handicrafts again. The waterbuffalos we passed didnt even acknowledge our boat with the blink of an eye... and somehow I felt like moved back centuries in time.
After teh boat dropped us of in Xingping we took the bus into the sunset... to Yanhshuo. The bus took us through scenic scenary (duh!) and fields of rice and grain as far as you can see... with just some mountains, waterbuffalos and small chinese villages with breaking-down-shacky-style houses in between, it all just seemed like traveling through a piece of art.
Arriving in Yanghshuo we checked into LP-recommended HI-Hostel - a good decision, as our 9-bed dorm was empty besides us and had a 'private' bathroom with a REAL toilet *luxury feeling*. Well throughout the night we should notice that the matrasses were of the uhm... old-overused-extra-'soft'-foam-on-wood kind. but it was ok.
Yangshuo is called the backpackers paradise, and that is for a reason! West-street is filled with bars, souvenier and all kinda other stuff shops, restaurants and everything the typicall tourists want. And guess what, while I usually hate such stuff, there for some reason it didn't even put me off. I guess I just switched of my 'I-hate-touristy-places' mind for a while and accepted that the locals sell of their culture there. After days of Chines food, being in such a place of course we treated ourselves to some real pizza... oh god that was so good! I am getting hungry again just writing this! Afterward some rice wine (throat-desinfecting 50% alc.) we hit another bar. Making friends with some chinese guys we let them buy us loads of beer and play the typical dice-game again... surely all of us having a blast. And that was just the first day in Yangshuo...
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