I think I would have been cheaper buying the first class rail ticket than staying another day in Hong Kong. it’s so fucking expensive.

I think I picked up bird flu in Yangshuo because today I sill feel like shit. I checked into my hotel last night and went out to buy drugs to try and shift it. Before that however I went for a curry to see whether that might also help with clearing the nose and head but to no avail.

I got back to my hotel around 6.30pm took my drugs and shut the blinds and that was me until this morning. I did feel marginally better this morning and so I had breakfast followed by more drugs and went back to the land of nod until 1pm.

Where does all this snot come from, I’ve been producing enough to fill an Olympic size swimming pool and yet it continues. I had a shower and did feel a bit more human after that and so I decided I would try and change my train ticket so that I could return home tomorrow instead of Sunday.

I walked to the station to get some exercise and also to look for food because I was starving. Food in Hong Kong is not as good I think as mainland China and it’s also about twice the price. At the train station there was bad news, no tickets left for tomorrow so I’m stuck here for one more day. If I feel better tomorrow I will try and go for a walk somewhere, afterall that was the reason for having the extra days here.

I found lunch in a small place but it was shit and so now I’m sitting in McDonald’s having black coffee which is surprisingly good and wondering where to go to find some good food to fuel the body. If I want to do for a stroll tomorrow I’m going to have to find something better than what I had for lunch.

Catherine, Stuart and I stayed the airport hotel in Guangzhou, they fly home today and I’m doing an early visa run since I’m near Hong Kong. I’m getting the train there and I’ll return to Shanghai by train in a few days.

The metro from the airport to Guangzhou was packed for at least half of the one hour journey, not even a sardine would have been able to wiggle its way on board and of course my very large suitcase was causing major problems for some but as I was feeling like shit because I picked up a bug in Yangshuo, I couldn’t care less.

My suitcase comes in very handy when navigating crowds, this is where it comes into its own blocking people that try to sneak or try to push their way in front of me

After what seemed like an eternity I got to Guangzhou South Railway Station and had a bit of time to kill. I needed food and my options were limited and I really can’t believe I actually went to McDonald’s to have not one but two chicken burgers and an expresso.

Today we are leaving Yangshuo and heading to Guangzhou on the high speed train and it will take us around two hours or so. It’s a distance of about 430kms, the taxi from the hotel was about 30kms and took nearly an hour.

The train station is set into the mountains and you no sooner get underway and we enter a tunnel which felt like an eternity. I timed another tunnel that we went through and it took nearly a minute and a half at a speed of 250kph so you work the length of the tunnel if you can and I’ll tell you if you got it correct.

As we moved south the landscape also changes and becomes more flat and arable and you can see the many rice farms along the way.

Guangzhou is a very big city and it’s very busy. We had to stand for an hour or more as we made our way to the airport to get to our hotel.

At the airport we got picked up after a phone call using my broken Chinese. The room was ok but right under the flight path, mind you after I took a cold and flu tablet I think I drifted off to the land of nod.

Our last day in Yangshuo and the sun was still shining which was great because we decided to hire some bikes and go to Moon Hill. The last time I was here I went on a bike tour and they took me through rice fields and small villages before we arrived at Moon Hill but today my navigation skills were not so good and plus the fact there has been significant development and changes in the last five years.

We did end up in one small village but we had to back track and we ended up on the main highway for a short time before arriving at Moon Hill.

This place to has changed dramatically and I was struggling to recognise anything.

We stopped for a break in the shadow of the mountain beside the new bus park where they had some giant transformers.

It was about noon by the time we stopped and the sun was getting hot and I think we were all looking forward to our reward which was going to be Indian food, but for now we had to settle for some fruit.

It’s about 7 kms back to the hotel but it did feel longer than that, maybe because of the heat or maybe we were just all getting a little weary from our extended tour of Yangshuo.

The weather today was perfect and the sky was blue and the scenery beautiful and so all in all it was pretty good. Oh and the Indian food was great although it was a wee bit pricey.

A lazy morning and then it was off for coffee across the road from the hotel. The cafe is small but the coffee is good, possibly the best we have had so far. The coffee comes from Yunnan Province which is off to the west of us, it’s smooth and is not bitter like many others I’ve tried.

A view from the rooftop

It says decided that we have a lazy day walking around Yangshuo and so we did. One thing we noticed quite soon was the many large butterflies that seem to be here and they are very beautiful. Two in particular you will see in the video below.

We walked through the local park where they have the usual congregation of the old and those doing exercise and we even had some singers.

Walking along the quiet streets we found so many small quaint and inviting cafés but if we had stopped at each one we would have been awake for days.

In the afternoon there are many boats arriving from Guilin, just as we did yesterday and so this morning before the hoards arrived in Yangshuo we realised that it’s a lovely wee place but as the we neared the time for the arrival of the boats we saw the setting up of the many stalls and folk getting ready for the next influx.

This road brings you back round to the Li River once more where we found and old guy with his two cormorants and so Catherine decided to have her “photies took”

We headed for lunch and ate our fill and then returned to the hotel for tea. The weather has been so warm today that after having my cup of tea I felt in need of a siesta and so I did.

Guilin to Yangshuo can only really be done properly by going on the boat, although the price has almost trebled in the last five years. The scenery is spectacular and it’s so good to finally leave the city for a while and get back to nature.

We got up really early but as it turned out there was no need because the bus arrived nearly an hour after we were told it would.

The bus ride was painful once again for the ears. The tour guide kept on taking from the point where we were picked up until the last passenger boarded.

For forty minutes we were a captive audience with no where to go. After all the up selling spiel we then had to listen to the souvenir spiel, although she didn’t mention too much in English about that…….. but man did she drone on and on and on. I was really tired and just wanted to shove a sweaty sock into her mouth to shut her up, or better still throw her off the bus.

The bus was going so slow so that she could get through her routine before we arrived at the jetty. Thankfully the tour guide on the boat showed a bit more decorum and spoke quietly in a normal voice and only every so often to highlight some of the sites along the way.

The scenery speaks for itself and so I’m not going to begin to try and do it justice because I’m not sure I can.

The sun was out and the sky was blue and it was in such contrast to my last trip five years ago when it rained and I froze my arse off and so for me it was like seeing it for the first time in all its glory.

After we arrived we had one of the best coffees of the journey

Today we went to see the Reed Flute Cave which was just a short bus trip from our hotel. It’s a limestone cave which has been illuminated by many coloured lights throughout to highlight the many wonderful formations.

No discount here unless you are Chinese, which I think we sound adopt in our own countries…….give the locals a cheaper price than the tourist……… and you know this is a common practice throughout South East Asia, it’s just that if Western countries were to do this then we would be seen as racist.

It’s a short walk to the cave entrance and we had to wait for the next tour to start which of course is given by a young robotic looking female. The script is in Chinese so for us it’s useless. Even before we entered the cave system she hadn’t taken a breath during her monotone commentary and of course this continued as we moved through the cave. The Chinese love a good commentary broadcast through one of these personal PA systems that all guides here use, like most foreigners I’ve spoken to they also hate this because it’s so fucking loud. The Chinese seem to love it.

We dropped back from the main group so that we could get more time to appreciate the cave and also to stop our ears from bleeding. I enjoyed walking through the cave and when we reached one of the largest chambers we actually split from our Chinese party and tagged onto the back of a German group.

If you come to Guilin I would recommend to you that you should visit the caves and explore the rest of the park area although we headed back after a short walk up to a small pavilion. Tomorrow we are heading to Yangshuo and I’m really looking forward to the river cruise down the Li River.

Today is the big train journey which will take us half across the country to a very different landscape. Guilin is a very pretty place and the landscape is quite unique although if you have ever been to Halong Bay in Vietnam you will see a similarity.

The journey takes just over eight hours and is way better than flying because there is no real check in process. You just arrive 30 minutes before departure and find the gate to the platform. Our hotel is about a ten minute walk and we deliberately picked this area so that we could have an easy start to the day.

We got many supplies for the trip which consists of fruit, dumplings and crisp and even chocolate. We bought new flasks and so we can even have tea if we want. All in all it’s as good as it gets in peasant class, I guess the only real problem is the many Chinese that we are sitting that have no consideration for their fellow passengers. There are many announcements when we leave a station which no one seems to pay attention to, which is much the same as when we are waiting to fly. Things like be careful when you recline your seat, don’t talk too loud, keep your children under control, don’t play loud music but as I say many choose to ignore.

The train is sitting just over 300 kph and is very smooth and you would be hard pushed to find fault apart from of course having noisy passengers around us.

The sun was shining when we left Hangzhou but the rain soon set in as we began to travel west but I think that tomorrow should be fine and the rain will have hopefully moved on. I went to Guilin many years ago and it was also a bit damp and I remember that the pavements were really slippy when wet so we will all have to be very careful.

So for the moment we’re sitting here watching a misty landscape whiz by punctuated with cities farms and hills.