Back in Guilin

Well i have the essentials.... Beer and somewhere to sleep.
After the fun of Qingdao is said by to Craig who was heading via ferry to Korea then home to England's and caught a train to Shanghai.. the metropolis wanna be with neon lights and skyscrapers. the latest of which looks like a large bottle opener.. (photos to follow)

I had the surprise of finding myself in the same hostel and dorm as Mark who i met in yangshuo who had recently travelled up from the warmer climates of Hong Kong. The plan was formulated and we spent most of the day wandering around the back streets of the old town getting very curious looks from the locals, who probably couldn't understand why we chose to wander around what was to them the old poor and deprived part of town but which for us was a welcome contrast to the high rise landscape which is slowly reinventing Shanghai's skyline.

A stroll along the Bund which is a must for anyone visiting the city made for an amusing afternoon and is like a walk through the changing fortunes of Shanghai. The mile or so stretch next to the river passes the commercial heart of the town full of consulates, museums, banks and businesses which are housed in the imposing architecture of the stone fronted, art deco buildings which would be suited to any of the major city's of the world, but looks out of place when you look across the river to the 80+ story skyscrapers such as the Jinmao tower with its no climbing sign (which i was itching to climb as its just pure jug pulling all the way up) and its neighbour the great big bottle opener which is still being completed.

You can see how this imposing avenue now sinking due to subsidence would have marked the wealth and prosperity of the city like fleet street or wall st it makes a dramatic backdrop to this montage of cultures and society's.

After a day walking the streets we headed out in search of good food which is almost impossible not to find in Shanghai, street vendors, noodles, dumplings are all available in large quantities, for very little money you can eat until bursting, and then afterward we went in search of nightlife which on a Tuesday night proved fairly elusive but after a hike about town sinking a few beers and pool balls was managed and the day after i headed via Huaihua in Hunan province to Fenghuang. after a 23hr hard seat on a train and a few hours on a bus. I've had Novocain that left me with more feeling than sitting on a poorly padded seat for 23hrs.

Fenghuang is about as far from the neon and glitz of Shanghai as you could imagine. This picturesque riverside town home to Miao and Tujia minority's has loads of charm and meandering the streets of the old town absorbing the views with houses supported by stilts hanging over the river was a great but very cold way to spend a couple of days, made even more fun by a power cut and a hostel that had no heating no hot water and then no electricity. but such is life. food was good beer was had as was rice wine and i had a great but very cold time.

If arriving in the town was hard, then leaving proved to be something of a hazard. There were few buses running and the one i got on heading south to Huaihua ended up heading north to Jishou due to road closures. (perhaps they should take a look at some of the roads in Russian then ).
When we got of the bus and found that the train station was closed so five of us squeezed into a taxi and headed south to Huaihua where after getting out and pushing a few times and after some frantic overtaking we arrived alive and in one piece. much to the surprise of some.
Unfortunately on inspection and lots of waiting in queues i discovered there was no possible way of leaving the town that day so i spent the night at a cheap hotel and then with he help of a local medical student whom i meet the day before i managed to get a train to Guilin which involved 11hrs on the wonderfully hard seats in he cheap section of the train, however at least this time the carriages which were designed to seat 118 people didn't have 170+ people in them unlike the trip from Shanghai where the train staff literally keeps pushing people onto the train until you felt that the sides of the carriage would burst open.

Well the good news is that iv just about finished my first drink and will soon be ordering another, not that i need it to aid me sleep but i relieve's the discomfort that i now feel from such a luxurious method of transport over the past few days.

Well its time for the second beer. photos will follow but beer is of a higher importance at this time.

North Again

Well after a relaxing time in Yangshuo with much climbing and drinking over Xmas and New Year I left my climbing stuff with a newly acquired friend who works at one of the climbing companies (China Climb) and headed north with Craig, a lad from New Zealand whom I travelled from Xi'an down to Chengdu with.

Craig and myself left Yangshuo on the 3rd and headed north to LuoYang in Henan, where we went to see the Longmen Caves, the hostel we were at had some fairly cheap Chinese Baths, giving me the chance to relax for a few hours in the evening after sweating in a suna etc...

On the 5th we headed to Kaifeng which has a large and wacky night market full of great food which we wandered around for dinner after having visited the Iron Pagoda (not made of Iron). Where we were fortunate enough to witness a spot of fishing.

Then it was off to Ji'nan and Tai'an so as to go up Tai Shan, the holiest mountain in China and after all 6660 steps from 250M to 1545M and now after passing through the gate at the top I'm a celestial being... According to the book (lonely Planet).

The route has many small temples and lots of chinese writing on the rock faces one section in peticular is 25m high with 1m characters.

I'm now in Qingdao for some well ernt beer, and from where Craig gets the ferry over to Korea for his flight home, The town feels more European than Chinese which is more than likely to do with the legacy left behind by the Germans whom it was leased to in 1898 until 1914 when the Japanes held it until 1922 and then later it was a marine and naval base for the US from 1945 to 1949.

The plan is to then head down to Shanghai and then head back to Yangshuo via Hunan province, probably stopping at Fenghuang. not sure of any other stops yet.