Guilin - Yangshuo - Xingping - Kunming and future plans (China trip part I)

Reporting from Kunming, Yunnan province right now. How it all started:
So we finally took off for the big China trip last monday. We were planning to apply for the Russian visa but we find out it would take us another two days in Hong Kong. We will now apply for it in Shanghai in July. I was supposed to meet Jamie at the ferry terminal in Kowloon. Ofcourse there was a communication problem we ended up at two different terminals! Off to a bad start. A couple of hourse later we met and went straight for Shenzhen to take the train to Guilin. The train would leave at around 6 pm and we were wondering if we even could have tickets since we were in Shenzhen around 4 pm. Chinese people like to exagarate because we heard from different people that it would be very difficult to get train tickets in de high season. We found out it was actually quite easy and we had train tickets (hard sleepers) straight away. We then had dinner and headed back to the train station to catch the train. I've never been in a Chinese sleeper train before so I wondered what to expect. They are really clean and the beds, altough hard sleepers, where comfortable enough to have a good nights rest.

The next day we arrived in Guilin at 7.42 am (according to Jamie's well kept notes) and after inspecting the lonely planet we decided not to stay there. After buying tickets for Kunming for the next days evening, we took the bus straight to Yangshuo, a smaller place and more a laid-back backpackers resort, than the busy (and to be honoust, really ugly by the looks of it) Guilin. We arrived there around eleven and checked into a hostel straight after arrival. The hostel costed only 2.50 (euros) per person and that's for a double room! Viva la China!
After that we took the bus to Xingping were we took a boat tour along the Li river, which boasted some incredible scenery. The tour lasted for almost one and a half hours and we took plenty of pictures (as soon as I have a chance I will try to upload them to the photo album). The dock for the boats was a bit outside of the city and we decided to walk back because we had some time to kill. Bad choice on our side, because of 15 minutes walking it started to rain. It was really a tropical sudden rain and in no time we were completely soaked. After the rain cleared we walked further but our clothes never really gotten dry again. We had lunch in Xingping again and headed back to Yangshuo. Back at base I was happy to take a shower and change to dry clothes and take a nap. Appearantly I slept for 2 hours and there was no way for Jamie to wake me up. Appearantly she tried various methods, including holding a ringing alarm next to my ear, but with no result. So now I'm very proud of my napping abilities, and I'm willing to share my secret (mail me for current rates!). That evening we had dinner at a street restaurant, which was quite ok, but I was still not that hungry after the nap. We walked around a little bit more but it started to rain again, so we headed back for the hostel. Jamie fell straight a sleep and I read for an hour or so before sleeping. This marked the end of day 2 of our trip!

The next morning we woke up early because we wanted to make a bike trip through the surroundings of Yangshuo and eventually go to a local mountain called the moon hill, but of course we ended up taking the wrong road. To make to best out of bad situation we wanted to bike back along the river, and therefore we had to find a bridge to cross it. This seemed easier then that it was and we needed some locals help to find it. Arriving at the bridge we found it's under reconstruction but we were offered a temporary ferry-ish service which would costs us 10 yuan. Of course they tricked us because none of the locals paid for it. Bastards! Ok, I guess we are easy targets but still...

So after reaching the other shore we headed in the direction of Yangshuo again but eventually got stuck because the road was inaccessible and we could continue. I must say that where we got stuck the scenery was absolutely stunning, even better than what we saw during the boat trip the day before. Although I'm so far talking about mountains all the time, it's not really doing them justice. They are more very steep rocks emerging from the ground, perhaps not even high enough to be mountains. I guess pictures will explain it better, and I advice using google to find out more, but if not, wait for the pictures, since I have plenty.

Well, anyway, we had to head back for the ferry and take the same road back. This time we didn't pay anything, and nobody was complaining, so another problem solved. We got back in time prepared for going back to Guilin that afternoon. We had lunch at a local Chinese place and at for 30 cents, 15 cents each! We than ordered some more food for take away so we would have something to eat at the train (which costed us another 60 cents, oh boy!). We took the bus at 2.30 pm that day and headed back to Guilin. We had a train waiting at 16.50 pm that took us to Kunming.

In the train Jamie found out that her money was taken from her wallet, 260 euros! Of course this came quite as a shock and we are still figuring out when it happened. Two hours before she paid in a supermarket and now it was all gone. Probably in the bus back to Guilin when we both were sleeping. At that point every Chinese that would anoy us shouldn't come too close because we were seriously pissed off. Nothing we could do about it and the next day (today) we just went on with our planning.

Arriving at Kunming we bought train tickets to Dali for this evening. The train will leave at 10.14 pm and thats one and a half hours away from now. Today we went to a local minorities museum first, which was really interesting. After that we went to an English bookstore where I bought three books (harry potter I & II and 'fear and loathing in Las Vegas'). After that we walked to temple which was probably the most impressive temple I've seen so far. It was quite big and the buddhist monks were holding a ceremonie at the time. Something I would recommend to anyone. After the temple we walked to a local travel agency to inform about possibilities of getting to tibet, but the agency closed 5 minutes before we arrived (it was an hours walk). I have the number now and will try to call to call them tomorrow and see if we could settle something. Right now I'm sitting in a restaurant where we just had pizza (yes, we did!). The plans are to stay a few days in Dali before heading for Lijiang in northwest Yunnan and see if we can do a hiking tour from there. Appearantly, the scenery is beautiful there. In Dali we will try to get us permits for Tibet and a overland tour to Lhasa which would take eight days. It seems to be really expensive so we want to share it with other people. I heard there are always other backpackers that want to do something similar, and perhaps it's possible to share the costs, which would make this option quite feasible. More on that later of course. For now I'm off to catch the train to Dali, where we have a few days to relax. Perhaps I can upload some pictures there, we'll see...

Thank you, bye bye!