November 5 - Guy Falkes Day to some

Hello to all from Lijang, Yunnan Province China. We are back in the mountains again after the warm weather of the south of China. I am not sure where I last left off as I composed my last post on the blogger site and I cannot access it from here. I got a note that something did not post and I hope it wasn't my last thing from Hong Kong as it was a long one...I guess I should stick to emailing in blog entries as then I have a record of what I said. I think that I had written some about Hong Kong. We had some great contacts there with both Servas people and Wellington people. Carmen Yau at the Wellington office was really great to us and while we were there Jeff Collins was visiting so we had the fortune of having dinner with him. What a treat! We left the Kowloon/Hong Kong Island area on October 28 and took a ferry across to Lantau Island - a great suggestion from our new Servas friend Jacky Andrews. She and her family have lived on Lantau for some time in Moi Wo - what a great place. We got off the ferry boat and walked down the beach to the Moi Wo Inn and checked in for about half the price that we were paying for the love hotel in Kowloon - it was great and we could have stayed there for at least a week but as usual we did not have enough time. We did get a chance to ride the bus up to the Po Lin Monestary to see the huge outdoor bronze buddah there. We arrived late in the day so the crowds were pretty thin. We also walked through the monestary and were able to watch an evening service going on in the main temple. The chanting was wonderful. This monestary is pretty new but it is very active and interesting. The next day we hiked most of the day - it was pretty hot and we were out of water by the end of it but it was lovely (a great suggestion from Jacky). We hiked from Moi Wo through some small villages to the South Lantau Country Trail - we walked for about 10K overlooking the south coast of Lantau Island. It was a real treat and we had the trail pretty much to ourselves. When we arrived back in town we hydrated on a couple of cold beers at the local pub near the ferry dock. That night we had a real treat - dinner with the Andrews at their house near our hotel. They were very gracious to make time for us as they had their daughter's 14th birthday party to deal with the next day. We had a lovely evening and a short walk back to our hotel. We were sorry to leave the next day but we had our air tickets to Guilin and we needed to be off again.

Our travel day was pretty uneventful but full of different types of transport - a ferry, then the HK subway, another ferry to the mainland, a bus to the airport, a plane to Guilin, then an airport bus and then a mini bus to Yangshuo. I think many of you are familiar with the scenery in this area of China as it is depicted in many paitings and photo graphs. It is remarkable for its karst scenery - limestone lumps rising from very flat plains. The Li River runs through this area making the whole scene quite stunning. The air was a bit hazy during our stay - the locals said this was because it had not rained much and as they were in the midst of harvest there was a lot of dust in the air. It was still pretty amazing.

We arrived in Yangshuo in the afternoon and tried to book into the hotel recommended by some friends we had met in Juizhaigou but they were full that night. We went across the street and negotiated our way into a room there for the night - where we made it clear that we were looking for something quiet so we could get some sleep after our long journey. Our next move proved to be our best - we went to have dinner at Susannah's near our hotel. The town was buzzing as it was Saturday night - no Halloween parties or anything just a lot of Chinese tourists. We were waited on by a lovely young Chinese girl - she spoke great English and we had fun talking to her. By the end of the night we had agreed to meet up with her the next day to go touring on bicycles. We took a walk afterwards and made our way back to our "quiet" hotel...did I mention it was Saturday night? Well we got back and discovered that the hotel was offering a disco on the first floor and when we got up to our room the walls were shaking as our room was over the back part of the bar! We just started to laugh - what else was there to do. We were so tired though that we pulled out the ear plugs and climbed into bed and somehow managed to get some sleep and we think that the party broke up sometime after mid-night. Needless to say we moved across the street the next night and enjoyed the Xi Cheng hotel for the rest of our stay and even got them a few other guests with our recommendations on the street.

The next day we had a great time with Lily - we rented our bikes and rode off along the Yulong River. We stopped and talked to some farmers as they were harvesting their rice - the whole area was in the midst of harvest time - it made the scenery that much more beautiful - the rice fields were all yellow waving in the warm breezes. The other big harvests going on were Pomelos and persimons neither of which we had tried before. People were working very hard! Lily tried to convince us to take a bamboo raft for a while but we said that we wanted to keep riding the bikes - which we did for most of the day riding in and out of small villages and along the river. We added a rider to our group when we met up with Muns from Sweden who was lost in a rice paddy. We stopped for a great lunch in the Moon Hill area and ended our day with a visit to Water Cave - Tom was thrilled to be under ground again but it was hard to see how much damage had been done to this cave. Hopefully those not visited by so many tourists are better kept although we saw a lot of cave trophy's for sale in various places.

The next day we were very lucky to be taken by Lily and her sister to her home village. Lily had to get permission to take the afternoon off from school which she did successfully and met us around 1pm. She and her sister had not been home for a month so it was fun to see their excitement. We took a small farmer's boat up the river about 45 mins and then walked a ways to her town. Her sister bought us little treats along the way and climbed a tree to get a persimon for us to try. Their village was small but beautiful in its own way in a valley studded with rice paddies, pomelo trees and persimon trees. Lily's family also had some chestnut trees. They showed us around their house and their mother fed us some wonderful food and stocked our bags full of fruit before we set off again to catch a bus back to Yangshuo. Before leaving we took a picture of the girls with their mother. We had a great hike to the main road passing some duck farms and other small villages. The girls knew a lot of the people on the path. When we reached the main road we hailed a minivan and made our way back to town. We promised them that we would make some copies of our pictures and thanked them for a great day.

What a story these girls have....they grew up in this small farming village with only paths to reach the bigger towns. Their father is a tractor driver and helps move construction materials around these small villages. Their mother does all the farming work and takes care of the house. They built a new house 4 years ago - it has electricity and when the girls moved into town they got a phone as well - a real luxury. There is no running water but the town well is just down the hill from the house. The family has four children - Lily is 19, then another girl we did not meet who is 17, then Shirley is 16 and they have a younger brother who is 10. Lily is paying to go to the Wilson School for girls in Yangshuo and wants to be a tour guide when she completes her course. As her mother is working to keep her 17 year old sister and 10 year old brother in school, Shirley is currently working at Susannah's. Lily also works there on Friday's and Saturdays. They get paid 10 yuan per night. Lily is trying to teach her sister some english and also would like her to go back to school when she is finished her course. They are an amazing family and we hope that they achieve everything they dream of. We plan to stay in touch with them if we can.

The next day we wandered around town and booked our tickets to fly to Lijang once again agonizing about the fact that we would like to stay longer but needing to move on as well - always trade offs when you are traveling. It was November 2 - election day in the US so we tried to stay in touch with things over the next few days - learning the results finally on Thursday morning.

On Wednesday we had another great day, taking the suggestion of the waitress at the restaurant that we dined at the prior evening to take the bus to Kangdi. On the bus we met a great Swedish couple - a lot of Swedes around here - Stefan and Hanna. We were also joined by a group of women from Guilin. We had planned to take a boat down to Xingping from Kangdi but were convinced by the group on the bus to walk - it was a great choice and even though the day was hot the scenery and the company was great. The Chinese could not speak English but they kept and eye on us and helped us negotiate our way across the river on the ferries that were a necessary part of this walk. When we were about 2/3 of the way through we got to the last crossing and they (using lots of body language) said that we should take a boat with them the rest of the way as the walk was less interesting from there. We hummed and hawed but finally agreed thinking that we would just catch a small farmer's ferry down the last part of the river. They helped us negotiate a price with a local and after some noodles at a small road side stand we got up to board the "boat".....well it turned out that they had negotiated for a bamboo raft....not what we were expecting! But oh well we piled on - they had 5 on each raft and we had 4 and we were all laughing and having a good time - I was a bit nervous as the guide book had said that these were not the safest crafts in the area but our captains all got us safely down the river weaving between the tour boats headed back up the river to Guilin. We were sad to say goodbye to our Chinese friends at the dock but they were headed back to Guilin. We had a beer in Xingping and then caught the bus back to Yangshuo. We had hoped to catch another ferry but they wanted 50 yuan a head which when compared with the 5 yuan bus fare seemed a bit much. We had dinner with Stefan and Hanna that night back at Susannah's. We asked Shirley to make sure that Lily came down to the restaurant after school. We had to wait a while but it was worth it as we gave the girls the photos - made a blow up of the photo of the girls and their mother and it almost brought tears to their eyes - it was one of the most rewarding moments of our trip. We were thrilled - there we lots of hugs and promises to keep in touch. We hope their mother likes the photo and that it finds a special place in their home.

I am going to have to go soon but just a few more thoughts - I did not really describe Yangshuo..the books make it sound like a sleepy little backpackers paradise...hmmm it is a bit Disneyland like as it has certainly been discovered and is overwhelmed with tourists in the afternoon that arrive on boats from Guilin. That being said it is a friendly town and you can get some great food there. Also they are very used to western tourists so English is not a problem. There are a lot of tacky souvenir stores but if you ignore those and wander the back streets it is a great place and you could spend a long time there. It is a real mixture of people from all over....a bit like where we have landed now in Lijang although there are fewer westerners here at the moment...or it is just bigger so we aren't seeing as many of them.

We had another long travel day to get here and as I mentioned we went from shorts and sandels to hats and long underwear again - it is a good change. We are staying at an inn that was an old Naxi home at one point. It has a beautiful courtyard and simple rooms. We enjoyed a pretty lazy day today but we do some hiking the next few days before we head to Dali. From there to Kunming and then ultimately to Vietnam, making our way through southern Yunnan as we go - we should be in Vietnam by November 20.

Thanks as always for the emails letting us know that you are enjoying our tales from afar. It is always good to hear from you. I am not sure when I will get to put more pictures up but I will try when I find good computers again.

We continue to be healthy and we are thankful every day for the experiences that we are having - all are just amazing. We will never forget Yanshuo though - we were really very lucky to meet Lily and her sister and also Stefan and Hanna - they all contributed to some of the most special days on our trip.

Cheers to you all - oh did I mention that Tom was brave enough to try another glass of red wine the other night - a lovely Tibettan Red - I can't say that he would recommend it again - but we continue to love tofu!


Pam