Entry Written From China But Banned
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We've been quite busy in the last 24 hours. We headed out of Hong Kong shortly after the last entry. We were on Hong Kong Island, so we jumped on the metro and within five minutes were under the harbor and back at our hostel. We retrieved our bags and took the metro up the border with China, crossing over in the city of Shenzhen.
That city was a little unsettling. Perhaps it was just that we were right in the area of both the train station and the bus station, but there were a lot of touts and other shady characters around. It made us a little nervous, in combination with the fact that we were now in mainland China and the usage of English in signs and postings pretty much disappeared. Soon, though we were on our bus and heading up north to the city of Guilin.
I've never been on a sleeper bus before, and it was quite the experience. There are three rows of bunk beds, feet first all the way to the back of the bus. I counted around 40 beds, all about 6 feet long. It turned out to be quite comfortable, as I slept a good part of the 12 hour trip, while Jess was too disturbed by the erratic driving to get more than four hours.
Once in Guilin, we grabbed our bags and headed straight for the bathrooms, as I'd slept through both of the bathroom breaks. Upon entering the bathrooms, I was immediately hit with a vile stench, and found myself in quite possibly the most unsanitary bathroom in the world. Then again, we just arrived in China. Jess had an even more dramatic experience, but I'll leave out the floating details.
We made our way to our hostel, which turned out to be quite nice for a $14 per night room. We had a little breakfast, then spent the rest of the day exploring Guilin. This city of nearly 700K is famous for its karst peaks, which are strange and steep peaks that emerge rather randomly along the rivers. We hiked up three of them, for different views of the city. The view was amazing and certainly worth the climb, but by the end, we were pretty much maxed out with our stair climbing. That's not even taking into account the fact we walked all over the city.
Now, we're just relaxing back at the hostel, drinking 600 ml bottles of Chinese beer that costs $1. We're planning on leaving most of our stuff here tomorrow and heading out to a little town called Longsheng, which is well known for its multiple rice terraces. The hike goes for hours between small villages, and we'll probably stay in one of them, in a more rustic hostel. That will give us a bit of a countryside experience. We'll be back in Guilin for a night, then head south to Yangshuo, where we'll spend a few days and decide what to do next. We are having quite a lot of fun.
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Until next time, be safe.
