Yangshou - China

What an absolute nightmare to get here! But finally at 6am on the day of Ian's birthday, we found a room, dropped our bags, met for breakfast and the boys commenced with birthday beers. Here we are in Yangshou, known as a backpackers retreat, found on the Rivers of Jinbao and Lijang. Westerners Street (foreigners St.) had loads of cafes, bars, souvenirs, and places to eat. It was heaving at night, with flashing neon lights that had supposedly replaced the red lanterns. The air was full of band music, restaurants competing with each other, and painful men playing recorders. Bar 98 was a particular favorite, run by a Chinese girl (Snow) and her Australian boyfriend. He runs biking tours and she runs the place when he is away. She has great staff that she pays double compared to anywhere else, so of course they just love her. Half price cocktails, great western food and a chicken satay to die for!! The area is known for fishermen with cormorants (birds) perched on their masters bamboo boats waiting for fish. The birds have rings around their necks so that they can't swallow there catch. Yet another cause for animal rights, but interesting concept. Ian and Jason the following day drank from 11am until 1.30am. Of course Jacque and I were, plain 'angry' as they had not let us know what they were doing, or where they were, as we waited in our rooms for them, to do something for the day. So of course they were in the dog house, and the following day the girls went off on our own to calm down. We had met a English girl called Eve (who was traveling on her own, and has a business making indian marquees and spends half her time between the UK and supervising the production in India) who took us swimming in the river, we hired push bikes to get there, and she introduced us to a guesthouse 20 minutes out of town, which we ended spending 4 nights in (with the boys of course, we didn't leave them in town - as who knows what they would have got up to!). We organised a guide one day by the name of Canny, from 9.30am until dark. We had push bikes, and our first stop was the Old Tree - Banyan of a Thousand Years - 1400 years old, 7.5 km south of Yangshou, 17 m high, 7.1 m wide, spanning an area of over 1000 m sq. There were huge long snakes with their mouths taped shut, and monkey's in costumes (not very good for animal rights!) We biked along local dirt roads and through villages. We climbed through some caves and had a mud bath, visited Moon Hill (mooned shaped hole) which you had to walk up, and in the heat it was all abit much. I had this old lady fanning me most of the way. I didn't say no, as the sweat was just dripping off me. Of course I had to then pay over the price for a soft drink - which included her services. We had a leisurely bamboo raft down the river as dusk began to set in, and to finish off our day. Well the calves were sore after our days adventure! There is a Dumpling restaurant (reminiscing our dumpling experience from China) there, if anyone else loves them as much as we do. We went and stayed at the Yangshou Outside Inn just outside of town, run by a Dutch owner. We were nestled next to limestone cliffs. These ones actually are the same limestone cliffs that are in Krabi, Thailand. We enjoyed relaxing, swimming, the food, early nights. It had been really hot, and then it rained and got cooler. To get to the river to swim you had to walk through the paddy fields, where you could see buffaloes and locals with homemade fishing rods from bamboo - stunners. Jacque, Ian and I did a cooking class, and learnt the Chinese use of garlic, oyster sauce, chilli and cooking with beer. Ian went rock climbing with an English guy who was teaching English, but unfortunately had a finish early for feeling unwell. We also planned for the next leg of our journey (Sth East Asia). WE ALL GOT SICK! To varying degrees. Jacque starting it all off and being the worst. Ian just feeling a little unwell, but no losing any of his bodily fluids, then me, and Jason (who just plain thought he was not going to be touched). It took as days and days to all get over it. So what was going to be 7 days relaxing, ended up being 12 days, which in hindsight was the best place for it if we had get unwell. Hence Ian was the only one that went to Longshen Rice Terraces (3 hour bus trip one way) - as Jason had come down with being sick that morning, and us girls weren't prepared to do the long day trip without being 100%. Next was an overnight train to Shen zhen to then cross the border by foot into Hong Kong on the 26/09/04.