nanning

Nanning was my staging post for entering Vietnam. It's another busy, crowded Chinese city but not much else. On arrival, I met two German girls and we decided to travel to Hanoi together. First we sorted out accommodation which wasn't great. With hindsight, I can see why we ended up in such a dump. One of my teutonic friends was a text book, hardcore traveller whose sole concern is paying next to nothing for everything. Regardless of whether she actually insults the seller with her counter-offers. The other one was pretty enough for me to forgive her of anything!

The highlight in Nanning was meeting up with a Nanning girl by way of hospitality club. I was staying for a short time so it seemed a nice idea to meet someone for the city. Learn something about the place firsthand rather than the usual guide book experience. After some initial confusion about meeting times and places, we met up. She took me (plus the two frauleins) to a meal with several of her mates. It was a posh restaurant and she wouldn't allow me to pay. The Germans were v happy! Then she took us by car around the city to see what few sights there are. Finally, she took us to one of the city's more upmarket Karoke bars. Again, I wasn't allowed to pay for anything. The Germans made no such protests.

It was an incredible thing. For someone I have never met and had only exchanged a couple of emails with to be so generous and hospitable. I will forever remember Nanning for that.

guilin

It was nice to get away from Yangshuo and the pimps. I had been told Guilin wasn't worth a look but now that I have seen it, I disagree. It's cleaner, more modern and nicer place than I was lead to believe. Apart from after dark, of course, when the nightcrawlers are out selling their wares and dodging them becomes a task.

Guilin is a pretty useful place to get to see the 'dragons backbone'. This is an area dominated by terra paddy fields. This type of landscape is created by digging a series of steps along the sides of mountains. A process perfected over 800 years. They are amazing to look at. They look very much man-made but unusually, not at all out of place.

Although I booked myself in with a Chinese tour group, I was fortunate that the guide could speak English and he was happy to do so. I got more than I expected. The area is populated with an ethnic tribe whose last recorded income per head took place in 1997. It was a princely sum of 36 euro's. Imagine that. In 1998, 80% of their wooden village burnt down! Poor buggers. There are a number of other ethnic tribes in the area and we visted two others. One was a village where no one cuts their hair ! Ever! The other was less exciting.

The sights in the city are much the same as the other city's I have been in China. Pagoda's, temples, etc. I went for something different with a little Chinese opera. Opera, it wasn't. Chinese, it was. The show was a kind of fusion of ballerina's, acrobat's and some badly timed 'broadway' type dancing. It was called 'the dragons heart'. The music was prerecorded. The best part was a scene called 'The magnificence of the jug". The performers made themselves look like jugs (yes, jugs!) and all to the background of a song by Enya. How very Chinese. It was something else. Unmissable.

yangshuo

Took an overnight train from Guangzhou to Guilin and from there, a 1 hour bus journey to Yangshuo. Many people said Guilin was boring so I decided to stay longer in Yanghsuo. It is after all one of China's great landscapes. It is dotted with cone-shaped peaks that sprout out of the ground without following any particular pattern. Kind of other worldly.

I was met at the bus station by the ususal rag-tag of hawkers. One particularly persistent one turned out to be canvassing for the hostel I had choosen from the book. So I relented and allowed him to guide me there. This turned out to be a mistake. Not the hostel, it was cheap and central but the befriending this bloke. He pursued me like predator for the three days I was there. It wasn't intimidating, just annoying. He was mostly offering to get me hookers, arrange tours, etc, etc. I grew tired of hearing ' He-low, you ready for happy-happy?'. The bloke couldn't take no for an answer and soon I found myself dodging him. Best to get out of the town during daylight. On two occasions, he even came knocking on my door. I kept quiet and didn't answer.

So I rented a bicycle and went off cycling in the countryside. It's very beautiful. The old villages, the paddy fields, rustic. The only snag was the poor weather. Always misty. It was hard to see the entire surroundings. But I suppose the advantage is that there were not many tourists becuase of the time of year. I did bump into some sound Dutch people so we arranged to take the Li River tour. A big boat with five europeans. We followed a normal route that took in some of the best rock formations. It is an incredible sight. Each rock has a fancy name and a history behind it. It's very much a landscape that one would typically associate with China.

One evening I went to watch the fisherman use cormorants to catch fish. It's amazing that these birds can be trained to dive, chase and catch fish. It's kind of cruel too. The birds are half-starved when the fishing begins. Their hunger increases the sharpness of their hunting so they are successful on many dives. The probelm, for them, is that the fisherman has tied a little string about the birds neck so that it can't swallow. The fisherman then pulls the fish out of the birds throat and the process is repeated. The stupid birds obviously can't figure out what happened.

We watched this traditional method from a barge-type boat that illuminated the fisherman and his sampan with the birds. There were quite a few tourists on board, trigger happy with their camera's. In their quest to get a better shot, they piled onto the front of the boat in a frenzy. There are no hand rails. The boat hit something and this short, portly women toppled along the deck and overboard. Three others lost their camera's. It's a shallow lake so she was quickly recovered. The baot didn't sink thankfully. But I have to admit that I found it hilarious. All for a photo!