DAY 140 - Yangshuo, Guangxi, China

Did you know that China only spends 1% of it's GDP on healthcare compared to 7% or 8% in Western nations? I only mention it because it was the first thing to go through my mind after the events described in the last paragraph below. Better that through my mind than a tree, I suppose.

 

The bus journey to Hanoi was considerably easier than our previous bus trips. In fact, it went rather well. After checking in at a reasonable hotel we decided to have a day off pagodas and stuff, so went to see Quantum Of Solace instead.

By a stroke of luck, the hotel we'd picked just happened to be very close to the area with the highest concentration of Bai Hoi (fresh beer) shops in the city. We spent each night sat on plastic children's garden furniture, wiling the hours away watching life pass us by (or, this being Vietnam, narrowly missing death by moped / taxi, every 20 seconds).

On Sunday we headed out to Halong Bay for a boat ride around it's deservedly famous water scape. Small mountainous islands rise sharply out of the water to look like giant dragon's teeth, covered with green bushes on all but the steepest slopes (the dragon clearly doesn't brush his teeth).

We stopped on floating platforms for a while where fishermen who live in small huts flog their produce at ridiculous prices to gullible tourists. The seafood is then cooked back on board by equally expensive chefs. Our reputation as cheapskates was not compromised. We had the free rubber squid and rice. Despite this, it was an excellent, if long, day out (three hours on a coach each way).

On Monday we splashed out again for a tour to the Perfume Pagoda. It was a long way. First, a couple of hours on a coach. Then an hour in a boat that was no more than a flattened out baked bean tin that floated precariously a couple of centimeters above the waterline. When a motorboat passed by, the resultant wake almost flooded us (ok, I exaggerate). Finally we took a cable car to the cave where the pagoda was located. On this occasion, the getting there was as much part of the trip as the destination itself. The tour guide was useless. His English was rubbish, he had no control over the group and he had little idea on where we were going. Apparently his full time job was as a member of a boy band. He should have stuck to the singing instead of trying (unconvincingly) to over charge us for cable car tickets.

For our last day in Vietnam we hovered around Hanoi itself. Finding shops to buy the basics is easy as the streets are named after the products they sell. So "clothes street" sells clothes, "shoe street" sells footwear and "counterfeit street" sells photocopied money (Oh yes! Apparently needed for religious purposes).

In the evening we got the train for China.

First stop has been Yangshuo. Whereas nearby Guilin is more famous, Yangshuo is smaller, friendlier and infinitely more prepared for western backpackers. The location is simply fantastic. The Karst scenery looks a lot like Halong Bay in Vietnam, but on land and magnified several times over. The weather is decidedly chilly - but not cold - which is perfect for cycling, so on Thursday we hired bikes and pedalled around the surrounding countryside for some gob-smacking views. There aren't masses of tourists here either which makes it even more pleasurable. The land is a hundred shades of green, only broken by the blue sky, the brown rock and the multicoloured fly-tipped rubbish the Chinese drop anywhere and everywhere.

In the evening we saw some Cormorant fishing. The fisherman ties an elastic band around the birds' throats (so they can't swallow) then takes them out onto the river on a bamboo boat. In the water the birds dive to catch fish and when their necks are bulging, the fisherman hauls the birds back on board and removes the fish with a good whack on the neck. Sounds cruel, but the birds behave like well trained dogs and don't try to escape, and they get a share of the catch at the end.

Generally I like China more than Vietnam. People don't try quite as hard here to rip you off. However, the locals do suffer badly from the Three S's: Shoving, Shouting and Spitting.

 

Friday we took a boat ride to view more of the scenery during the day and went for a lightshow in the evening. The lightshow was great and something only the Chinese could put on. With several hundred  performers, it was set on water with the Karst mountains illuminated behind it. Fantastic. It was a shame the locals had to shout all the way through it.

 

We liked Yangshuo so much, we decided to stay another day... Bad mistake.

 

Mum, you'd better stop reading now.

Our last full day in this part of China was a visit to the Dragon's Backbone rice terraces. The coach took us up into the hills and onto some windy roads, high above the fields. At this point the driver lost control of the coach as we rounded a bend and we crashed to a stop. The front window dropped out and the door (in a strangely comic way) fell off. We climbed out through the hole at the front, hinting to the driver that it may be a good idea to turn the electrics off. From outside we could see where we had landed. As the coach had left the road its front right wing had clipped a half meter high concrete wall. This was the only thing that had stopped us going over the edge and dropping at least 100 metres to the ground. Most of the bend had no protection at all so we were lucky to have hit it. One girl was taken away in an "ambulance" (a shuttle bus with no equipment and a cross painted on the side). Dan and I got away with bruised knees and frayed nerves. It's a bit scary when you realise your life was almost certainly saved by a small lump of concrete. I'll never slag off 60s architecture again. After all that we eventually got to the rice terraces only to find the place smothered in fog, so we couldn't see anything.

Oh well. That's travelling for ya.