Our last day in the country, we very much enjoyed our time in Yangshuo, one area we would like to come back to. There is nothing wrong with Beijing, Shanghai and Xian but once you have seen the sights then there is less reason to go back. The area we have been in (pointy mountains, villages, slow way of life) would be worth spending a lot longer in.
The hotel was very simple yet had nice food and the two receptionists / porters photographed with Gill were a delight. Very chatty, always laughing they made us very welcome.
On the way to the airport we visited some limestone caves, very large and spectacularly lit, but nothing very special, and then our driver took us to what the hotel billed as a stone village.
Actually it was a group of houses about 300 years old which have not been restored, there was lots of woodworm and dodgy floorboards but it was great, dare I say, to us much more enjoyable than the Forbidden City. We do hope someone sympathetic takes them over and restores them properly.
The picture below shows the old chap who unlocked the house so we could wander round.
We are now on the very southern tip of China in a holiday resort called Sanya. When arranging this holiday in December I must have been feeling a bit flush with money so booked a very expensive hotel, part of the Raffles chain, on the beach. I think I fell for the old sales gimmick of saying how much off the price was, not the price you actually pay. Anyhow we are here now and will try and make the most of our sumptuous surroundings, champagne anyone? The strange thing is it seems empty, there are four restaurants, we stuck our noses in all of them this evening, there could not have been more that twenty people in total dining yet the place is enormous.
Last night we spotted a book by two Canadians (James Hawkins and Sheila Swanson) called Slow Train to China, they did the same journey as us last year and have turned it into book, a bit strange really, it is hardly adventurous travel, getting on and off scheduled trains and sleeping in nice civilised hotels. They even, like us, booked everything in advance so the risks were minimal. On the other hand perhaps we should do a book, we do have a lot of pictures, so far we have taken just over 2800 so with a bit of happy snapping over the next four days we could reach 3000! In the old days of 35mm film you thought you had done well to use three rolls of 36 pictures
A short calculation tells me that it will take four hours to watch all the pictures, with a bit of luck it will deter any of our children coming home for a while.
Interestingly though the two Canadians had a completely different take on Mongolia and Ulan Bator, they hated it. So if, following our blog, you are booking your flights to Mongolia you had better get a third opinion. I however am sticking to my view, I thought it was great.
They did however think the hotel we have been in in the past three days and the area around was the best in China, bit of a bold thing to say but is certainly very nice indeed.
We see from the BBC that Britain has been affected by air pollution! We were expecting China to be terrible in this regard but whilst we have not had a completely clear day throughout our stay it has not been too bad. Perhaps the high winds and rain help!
Tomorrow we will probably spend the whole day trying to photograph the toilet in our bedroom. It is Japanese and has a control panel more complex than our TV and has squirters, dryers and oscillators (what on earth can they do?) so far all I have been able to do is fire water across the bathroom, being a coward I dare not sit on it so tune in to Gill and John Go East for tomorrows exciting news about a toilet.