Things to see in Guilin

As our train pulled up to Guilin the mist parted to revel the towering mountains around us. Our first impression was Guilin was that it was all we had heard about and more. We had a week to enjoy our time here and we wanted to try everything Guilin had to offer the only problem was we were still suffering from the dreaded food poisoning we had caught in The Philippines. Our bodies were rebelling and we were fighting against our tummies to have a nice time.
We luckily had a beautiful room in the ‘Green Forest Hostel’ that let us rest up in a nice environment or as nice as a place can be when your body is trying to attack you. Unfortunately one of these rest days was Lee’s birthday. The poor guy had to spend his 30th curled up in a ball watching Sopranos with the rain pelting down outside. As birthdays go, it wasn’t the best. Like a trooper he pretended to like the crappy signs I made him and pretended the card I’d carried with me from Korea was special. He also received a voucher for a suit once we arrive in Vietnam (I feel to help lower the price of this suit I should also get lots of lovely clothes made…it would be rude not to after all).
After a ruined  birthday we had to bite the bullet and decided to head to the hospital. After a very quick, efficient visit and 36 pound later we were loaded up with all the pills China had to offer.They took effect after about 24 hours and we could finally explore. The city of Guilin is quite bustling. Set among the beautiful mountain islands this little city is a great place to wander around. There is the famous sun and moon pagodas to see in both the light and dark and the large delicious night markets that fill a large area of Guilin. We also discovered a small traditional street filled with street food and bakery’s that had our tummies rumbling for the first time in weeks and this time for the right reasons.
The only thing that was annoying about Guilin was the price of all the attractions. I stupidly thought that it would be free to see the famous rocks listed in the guide books such as Elephant Hill, but you had to pay to get in to every area. There is luckily always an opening on the river bank for a sneaky photo but it was never quite the same. It was about 7 pound for each attraction which was a little out of our budget. We picked a trip down the river to Yangsheo and a trip to the rice terraces and even that was pushing our budget to it’s limits.
The night market was our spot for every evening. Greasy noodles and Taiwanese breakfast pancakes. We wandered the streets daring to try foods with our delicate bellies and seeing the Guilin people go about their day. Guilin was a much nicer place to be than Guangzhou. People smiled and were helpful in shops. We always received a friendly smile when attempting to speak our broken Cantonese.
The day trips were the definite highlight of our trip to Guilin but the sheer amount of photos I took requires a special post and maybe an AA group dedicated to a shutterbug addicts.

A Very Special Day

This is just  a short post to celebrate one of my favourite days of the year. Our anniversary. Today we can say that we have been each others person for ten years! At 8 Lee was my ‘love at first sight’. At 15 he was my high school sweetheart and at 27 he was the love of my life.
We met 20 years ago while our families were getting our brothers ready for an Easter Bonnet parade. Since then we have been firm friends. In the twenty years that i’ve known this lovely man I have been lucky enough to call him my friend. But for ten years of that i’ve been able to say he is my favourite person. I hope this is just the beginning.
I will always be grateful that we had a chance after uni to go our separate ways and see the world on our own but I’ll always be more grateful that we found each other again.
We are in Hong Kong at the moment (I will catch you up with our China adventure) and we love everything about this city. What better place to celebrate ten years with my partner in crime, travel buddy and sweet , sweet man.
Sorry for the sappy post everyone , but Happy 8th of April
xxx
xx
x

Island Hopping in El Nido

There was one thing and one thing alone listed on our ‘to-do’ list for El Nido. Island Hopping. After I recovered from the demon that was food poisoning we booked a trip for the next sunny day and got ready to enjoy a day of sight seeing.
In El Nido the government has formed four routes that tourists can travel. These are called A,B, C and D. I had heard really good things about tour C so we signed up for it and before we knew it we were wadding through the sea at waist level to get to our boat.
Each tour costs around the same price no matter where you go and every tourist is required to pay an environmental tax before doing a tour. The tax is only 200 pesos. This money is then spent keeping El Nido’s beaching and water clean. Since the island is quite new to tourism it is trying it’s best to combat the mess that goes with having hundreds of foreigners suddenly attacking your beaches.
As soon as we were all seated and in our stylish life jackets we hit the high seas. It was nice just to be sailing out on the water we’d been staring at for a few days. The islands towered around us and we took in the view.
We made 5 stops in all. Each stop was about 40 minutes and allowed us to try out our snorkeling skills. Tour C is a little quieter than the rest so the coral and sea life are still abundant. I have mentioned before that I have a fear of being in the sea but I was determined to throw myself in the deep end (so to speak) and snorkel.
At first it was terrifying just to be waist high but once I got the mask on and saw how the fish were happily carrying on with their day despite us being there, I relaxed. I unfortunately (due to my sea fear) don’t have a go-pro but we saw rainbow fish, angel fish, neon specimens and even a mummy clown fish and her babies swimming through the coral. It was spectacular. I was instantly addicted.
We stopped on the second beach for lunch where we were treated to a feast of grilled fish, shrimp,rice,pork and fresh mangoes. It was delicious.
With full bellies we headed to our next destination. Secret beach. As we approached a rock with no beach the boat passengers glanced at each other. All of us a little confused. That was when our guide pointed to a tiny hole in the rock and instructed us to jump in and swim through it. I had only just managed to handle being waist deep in the sea and now I was swimming through a hole with ten feet of water below me. Despite the dread that was knotted in my stomach I swallowed my fear and dove into the water. We swam through and we were rewarded with a beautiful lagoon filled with fish. We had to avoid a few tiny jellies but other than that it was fantastic. I was starting to like this sea faring life style.
We sailed on to an island that had a large abandoned church and shrine. It had be left to gather moss but had still retained it’s beauty. We climbed the treacherous rocks and were rewarded with a view of the surrounding area. It was breath taking. El Nido is definitely one of the most beautiful islands I’ve ever had the pleasure of visiting. It is like living in a screensaver.
As we headed to our last destination everyone on the boat was in good spirits. That was until the was a clunk, a ‘thunk’ and silence. The boats motor had died. We all let out a embarrassed giggle since none of the passages knew what was happening or what was to be done. It turns out that the protocol in these situations is for the youngest member of the boat crew to get on the roof with a towel and wave it like his life depends on it at every passing boat….even if they are miles away, until someone see’s us. It turns out that the quietest tour isn’t the one you want to break down on. An hour later and a passing boat tugged us to our last destination. Hidden beach. Hidden around the corner of a large rocky wall is a small lagoon and beach. This is a much more popular spot that other tours also visit so unfortunately the coral had mostly died and there weren’t many fish. But the beach was beautiful and peaceful. We both sat and took in the surrounds. It was a great day.
Our day ended by being towed back to El Nido and being thrown around a bit on the choppy waters. This ended up triggering a seasickness effect that had many guest throwing up over the sides…It is high praise for the trip that not even a broken boat and a line of hurling passengers could detract from the day. But maybe the passengers with their heads hanging over the side of the boat would disagree. I would recommend tour C if you do visit El Nido which cost 1400 pesos and i’d also pay the extra 100 pesos to hire a snorkle. Happy Island hopping everybody.

El Nido - Getting lost and lazy in Paradise

We had high hopes for El Nido – Palawan. It did not disappoint. I wish I had a lot to write about  but a place like this, with a hotel like we had meant we did, well….nothing.
We stayed at the Island Front Cottages in one of their new ‘sea view’ rooms, which was just a little bungalow to ourselves. We had a free pancake breakfasts, free juice all day, a sunset on our terrace every night and HBO in the room for lazy late night movie evenings. The beach we were on was a different one to the main built up area on El Nido , it was called Corong – Corong, which meant it was even more empty and peaceful.
By the time we arrived we had been traveling for 3 weeks. Lee was still recovering from a horrible bout of food poisoning that he is still suffering from now (I’m a little behind in my blog posts and writing this from China). We took the opportunity to have a vacation from our vacation. The lack of internet and things to do made up happy campers.
Apart from an island tour that we knew we wanted to do we took the opportunity to read, eat mangos and watch sopranos on the terrace. Yes we are lazy fools. Me more so since i’ve never seen Sopranos…I LOVE it.
Another excuse for my laziness is that I too suffered the dreaded stomach bug and was an un-moving wreck for 24 hours. I too am still suffering and starting to suspect we may have been hit by something a little worse than uncooked chicken. But if you are going to be ill, here is the place to do it.
Here are some photos from our time on this idyllic island. Apologies for all the sunset photos but I needed the practice and the island was just too pretty.

Our Chinese Train Debacle

How would I sum up the Guangzhou train station?
hmmm…..let’s say…Hell!

a crappy photo of the hordes of people

If you , like us, come from the UK then catching a train is something you will be quite use to. You turn up about half hour before if you are being cautious. Get your ticket and wait on the platform. This is not how they do things in China.
If you want to get a ticket for a train in China you need to make sure you are at the station an hour to two hours before. This is because:

1. The queues are 50 people long
2. The Chinese people didn’t seem to know how to queue

I’m not a confrontational person but after Lee and I had been queuing for over an hour and 5 people tried to push their way to the front to buy 5 tickets each , I got a bit nasty. I put my middle school teachers face on and shouted a stern ‘no’ in Chinese and pointed to the back of the line that was a faint speck in the distance. The man looked confused since pushing in is a way of life in China.
By the time we got to the front of the line we had missed our train but luckily the Chinese train system must be use to the chaos since you are allowed to re-book your tickets once. We re-booked and hoped an hour to get to the train would be enough. When we rounded the corner to see the chaos that confronted us, we weren’t so sure anymore.
Once you’ve queued for an hour (2 hours on weekends) to get your ticket you must then push your way through the mess of people, refusing to queue, so that you can get to the waiting area. Here you must present your passport and ticket. After half hour we finally got through, with a new hatred of every person in a five meter radius. I was ready to start swinging and taking names.
From here everything was a battle. A battle to get on the escalator, a battle to push our way to the x-ray machines, a battle to show our passports and ticket again…honestly you’d think we were trying to get into North Korea not just ride a train down the road in the same country.
Once all the checks were done we were in the waiting area and had 10 minutes to wait before we had to queue and get on the platform. By the time we sat in our seats (which to Guilin in first class cost 16 pound each) we hated the world. Then a strange thing happened….just when you thought you couldn’t hate the world enough…you hate it twice as much. The man behind me kicked my chair for an hour even after I asked him to stop, every person around us was playing music loud without head phones and a man was having conversations on his phone so loudly that the baby five seats away was crying. If i’d every wondered what the depths of hell are, it’s a Chinese train. Lee and I looked at each other without saying a word and burst into laughter. The sheer chaos around us was insane. We calmed ourselves with the knowledge that this was the new fast train to Guilin that took only 3 hours instead of the old train that took 12 and watched Guangzhou disappear outside the window and turn into a beautiful landscape of towering mountains and rice paddies.

at least there was a nice view

We didn’t know what to expect when we got off the train at Guilin but after what we had gone through the only thing I could think was ‘it better be worth it’.

Getting to El Nido

El Nido. Named by Huffington Post as “The last paradise on earth”. It’s safe to say that our expectations were high for Palawan. We left Bohol via Manila, for the third time in a month, and descended into Puerto Princessa just in time to see an incredible sunset in the clouds. Unfortunately there are no photos of this event since the Brit in me wouldn’t allow myself to wake the angry sleeping man next to me so I could get my camera…yes yes I know, I’m stupidly British. Here’s a blurry iphone pic to make up for it. Once we arrived in airport it was just a simple 7 hour bus (!) to El Nido. We knew there was a bus leaving in an hour from the bus station so tried to jump on a tricycle to get to the station. Unfortunately we were intercepted by a driver who told us he’d drive us to El Nido in 5 hours in his Shuttle bus. I realise that in hind sight it’s easy for me to read back that last sentence and feel a bit like I’m watching a pantomime and should start screaming at the screen ‘don’t do it!’ but unfortunately at the time we were tired fools and only saw the up sides. Those being: we could cut out the 2 hour wait time and another two hours of travel. So dumb and dumber here jumped at the chance, especially with the low cost of 600 pesos. Unfortunately things weren’t as great as they seemed. We were soon joined in the bus by a great guy who was also intercepted and was trying to get to El Nido. We all chatted for so long that didn’t realise we’d been sat waiting in the bus for over an hour. We asked the driver why this was the case and were told that 4 more people were arriving on the next flight if we would wait half hour. By now we had missed the last connecting bus so we had no choice. Two hours later we were all a little impatient and stuck. This is when we were moved to the bus station where we waited yet another 45 minutes for locals to fill every nook and cranny of the van. At 10:30, 3 and a half hours after we landed we were finally on our way. ‘On our way’ in this context also means stopping every hour in the middle of nowhere with a delightful lady boy selling garlic nuts (no pun intended) from a wooded hut. It should also be pointed out that ‘road’ isn’t exactly the same as the UK roads. They are move stones in dirt that you ride on. It was like riding a 7 hour roller coaster. If it hadn’t been 2am in the morning I’d have loved it. The driver also needed to stay awake so played loud trance music for the entire journey. It was an…umm…interesting experience.
We finally arrived and found that we were not on the reservation list at our hotel. We had booked a few months before but at 5am we were happy when they finally found a random room in a cheaper hotel next door for us. We finally rested our heads on the pillow just in time for the roosters and building work to start. It wasn’t what you would call a great start.
But like all stories this one has a happy ending. The next morning we were moved to our sea view room that was all I could have imagined and more. It’s safe to say that as hotel picker, Lee did good and at a great price. The hotel has been perfect ever since and we are luckily nowhere near the building work anymore. We have spent our first few days in El Nido and are in love with the place. Before we arrived we had started to read what a tourist trap it had become and we feared the worse but…and I am wondering whether to just keep this quiet, but it is empty and lovely. At least here on Corong – Corong beach. We have wondered the island and it’s all local with the nicest Filipino people we’ve met so far. We are being mega lazy. Reading, watching sunsets and lazing around. Catching up on the two year of stress we faced in Korea. Tomorrow we are heading on an island hopping tour (there are four to choose from named A,B,C and D but we’ve heard the C is a winner so we are heading on that one).
I’ll no doubt throw a thousand photos your way soon.