So after a very quick stint in Bangkok Manfred and I flew off to Hong-Kong, beginning our longe Superman S shaped journey through China, if all goes well, South, Shouthwest, East, NorthEast, Northwest...
We met up with Manuela, another aquisition by Manfred's ad in some travel magazing that suggested travelers to join us at various parts of the journey.... do I sound sceptical? Well I am a little less now after we are 1 for 2... Manuela is cool and a good travel companion for our trip through China since she speaks Chinese at about the same level (say 2nd grade with a learning disability and a heavy stutter :) than I do, so we are double tackling those chinese railway stations talking to the girl behind the counter while Manfred blocks off the pushy crowd of anxious and impatient chinese that would very well crawl underneath your legs and pop up in front of you trying to snatch a ticket....
Train Tickets: cheaper than an ice cream at a touristy spot in downtown Zurich and harder to get than a front row seat at the superbowl... you have to literally beg borrow and steal, and without persistance there is always going to the local chinese foregin travel office and paying the extra 50% on the ticket so they will do it... but what about honour?? Seriously... I have spent five months in China in 1998 and therefore must be able to buy a ticket by now... so here is how it goes.... you say blablablabla the ticket lady says "mei you" (we dont have it), you say blablabla and something else the ticket lady says "mei you"... you say it (phrase #1) again and she starts realizing that you will probably just stand there all day saying it again and again.... meanwhile Manfred is too bulky and good of a blocker than any of the chinese can run through and stuff money on the side of the little window to buy tickets.... so she gives up and actually looks up all possibilities and you end up wiht a ticket... AMAZING!! Now I am really not making fun of the Chinese of the system, I love the lines, the haggling, and the train rides themselves.. but nothing there comes easy that s for sure.
HongKong in the smog...
So Hong-Kong was pretty good, but a bit anticlimactic after Krabi.... the good part was we got to fly business since the plane was super empty and china air choose to rather let the five dirty funny looking tourist fly business than the well dressed chinese... weird but hey I did not mind!
After buying an altimeter watch and doing my first substantial amount of haggling in chinese we climbed the Victoria Peak and walked down to Aberdeen and took a Songchow (funny looking boat) for a spin... Manuela joined and we took off to Guangzhou to travel onwards to the famous Guilin/Yangshuo (just like Aberdeen/HongKong yet another scene from the Tomb Raider 2 movie coincidentally!)....
Along the way I had a chance to talk to a 23 year old very pretty chinese girl during the 18h train ride.... hey, brushing up on my chinese can be easy on the eyes! :)
Truly though those long train rides in sleeper compartments are the best way to relax and learn some chinese.... the chinese are very curious about the foregin travellers and not shy at all about asking all kinds of questions once they figured out you speak even just the littlest bit of chinese...
So on that same train we met Vi and Monica, not usually very big deal, we meet plenty of travellers... who would have known that these two germans would follow us (or we them!) for a long time!
Cycling in Yangshuo...
Kormoran fishermen use the birds to get the fish out...
They both are finishing their degree in Germany in Chinese and Business.... funny, now poor (or lucky!) Manfred ended up travelling with four bloody foreginers (Vi is Vietnamese and can slightly pass for chinese at times) that all speak chinese.... needless to say funny situations occur like that when we are in stores or restaurants.... it comes wiht the gigantic advantage that we pay the chinese not tourist price wherever we go, we eat at local inn's and hole in the wall restaurants where they have never seen or spoken english language, and the food is better and much much cheaper.
Monica taking a picture of Vi, Manuela, Manfred and I having "Baozi" for breakfast, a massive amount of vegetable and meat dumplings for 5 cost about 30 cents per person...Yangshuo is phantastic, set with limestone sharp hills with plenty of vegetation surrounding the Li river they are a perfect backdrop for tourists to relax, rock climb, bike, or take trips up the river by boats... unfortunately this backpacker haven has already been discovered by the mass tourism and now (4 years, later, I was there in 1998 with my ex-wife Theresa) there are a lot more "tourist cafes" and resort style hotels.... however there is still plenty of room for cheapo backpackers like us too....
Bouldering wiht the local climbing guides
Typical limestone formation along Li river
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