We arrived in a small village/tourist spot in Guilin after driving throught the night. We decided that we would start the day with a hearty cooked breakfast. In England a hearty cooked breakfast consists of sausage, bacon, egg, black pudding (kind of blood sausage), fried bread, grilled tomatoes, baked beans, and I have even seen chips (a chunky type of french fries). A coronary on a platter - mmmmm delicious.  We have this every day in England without fail, which probably explains our plummeting life expectancy. 

 

We pulled up outside a restuarant which overlooked the famous Moon Hill, stretched our cramped legs and called for the breakfast menu.  The waitress gave us a strange look and explained that there was not such thing - however if we were so inclinced we could order from the dinner menu.

 

After breakfast/dinner we decided that the first activity should be to locate a hotel.  Naturally the driver knew of a rather good one in Yangshuo, a few km's away.  Yangshuo sits on the Li River and appears to be the hub of tourist activity in the area so we agreed to start our accomadation hunt there.

 

After about 30 minutes of driving around Yangshuo it was becoming increasingly apparent that the driver hadn't actually been here before, let alone know of a top-notch hotels suitable for a gentleman of leisure and his entourage. 

 

During this time we had been shadowed by a young couple on a moped desperately trying to attract our attention with frantic waving and tooting.  Naturally we strictly followed the time-tested strategy when faced with unwelcomed attention by aloofly looking in the opposite direction.

 

  

We dicovered that Yangshuo offers many things to the well heeled tourist,  river trips on Bamboo boats with hunting Cormorants, plenty of hotels and hostels (of varying quality), restaurants galore, enough beer to sink a battleship, throbbing clubs and, most importantly, scenary that blows your fucking socks off.

 

And then there is the ubiqitous tat shops.  These exist the world over selling asorted trinkets and hand-made crap that any self-respecting 6 year-old would be too embarassed to take home from school.  Naturally I purchased tons of the stuff to palm off to family and friend back in Blighty.  Somewhere at 30,000 feet over the Urals, as I head home, the origins of the junk will transform from haggling with a fake Armani-clad Del Boy, to become a genuine ethinic fertility symbol, hand-crafted by mountain folk, during the long winter nights in their goat-skin hovels, where, for generations, they have survived solely on fresh air and despair.  

 

I'll even manage to find a photo on the Interweb that will support my story.

 

 

 

In Part 3 - I'll tell you all about our hot air balloon ride - a ripping yarn not to be missed - due for publication sometime in 2008.