Yangshou

There were cockroaches in this place!!!

Yangshou

The market where we found dog!

Cooking school!

Yangshou

Yangshou

After 30 hours of solid travel (taxi, train and bus) we eventually arrived in Yangshuo late Tuesday night. When we woke on Wednesday morning we were greeted with amazing scenery.

We like it here though the town is very much divided into Chinese and tourist areas. The tourist area is the same as any, full of bars serving Western Food and shops and stalls selling the same souvenirs. The Chinese area is fascinating. We accidently wandered through a market yesterday which was an experience in itself; chickens in baskets, rabbits (like from the pet store!) in cages, large shallow bowls full of squirming fish and eels! Meat and offal all laid out on the stalls, the market certainly had a smell all of its own. We grabbed a bite to eat here and had four dumplings stuffed with meat for Y1 (7p)!!!!!

Wednesday afternoon we went caving and had a mud bath - it was excellent fun, everyone was caked in the stuff and the welcomed the hot showers back at our hotel which is called Fawlty Towers! We also ate at a night market where we had one of the best dinners so far. The food was just gorgeous, topped off with a beer.

David's gone kayaking this morning whilst Nic had a Calligraphy lesson and this afternoon we're heading off to a cooking school. Over the next few days we will leave Yangshuo and head off to the rice paddies in Longji, the photos we've seen of this place look beautiful so hopefully we'll have clear weather. Fingers crossed!