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Written by Holly
Hello from Yangshou! We haven't updated our blog for a few days so thought we would spend a bit of time in the internet cafe (still very smokey!) updating the last few days.
The 16th Feb was our first proper day in Yangshou. The weather isn't as nice as we were hoping - they had a mini heatwave last week so we were getting the shorts out in anticipation, but alas, it's quite overcast and chilly. Still warmer than England though and probably better for sightseeing than the boiling weather we have still to come on our travels.
We met up with the group in the morning at our hotel, Fawlty Towers which has been a huge let down because there is absolutely no relation to the real Fawlty Towers whatsoever (other than it being a bit of a crap hotel!). There are no pictures of the real thing or references so we were very disappointed! But the beds were comfy (most of the beds in China so far have been very hard) so we had a good sleep. Anyway... back to the morning of the 16th... we went for a 'Western Breakfast' at the restaurant that we had dinner in the previous night. It's called Lucy's Place and is really cute but just like dinner the night before, it took forever to serve 16 people! We had visions of the kitchen being tiny and only one oven and one chef - all the food came out at different times leaving some people sitting staring at the others eating, not nice when you are starving!
After breakfast, we had our orientation walk of Yangshou with our guide Lilian. The town is really nice and a complete breath of fresh air compared to the other places we have been. We have realised that even though the cities were exciting, we much prefer being in the country and enjoying the beautiful scenery around us. The town is just like a holiday town, there's loads of bar and restaurants and there's just a really chilled out feeling which we really like. The air feels a lot cleaner and there's loads more to do.
After getting ourselves acquainted with Yangshou, we went as a group on a Li River Cruise which was really fantastic. It only cost us 8 pounds each and we got to go on a real bamboo raft (with comfy seats and cushions which we weren't expecting!) up the Li River which runs through Yangshou. The limestone mountains here are incredible - we have uploaded photos but they just don't do it justice. They tower above you and look so dramatic - especially now as it's quite misty. And there's so many of them - you can make them out miles away just looming up in the distance. Breathtaking. We cruised right through some of the tallest mountains - it turns out that this entire area used to be below sea level (millions of years ago!) and the limestone mountains were actually in the bottom of the ocean. We cruised up to a small island where we left the boat and went ashore - there was a man selling grilled meat (we uploaded a photo) and we skimmed stones in to the river. The boys found a grapefruit (random) and started playing football and baseball with it - typical! You find paradise and then still manage to find a way to play sport!
After the cruise was over we went back in to the town and had a wander trying to look for cheap clothes as we only bought warm ones and the next leg of the journey is going to be much warmer. We found the cutest dresses and Matt managed to barter one down to two pounds for me which was a real bargain!! The rest of the day was spent chilling out and trying not to go back to the hotel and fall asleep (we were still really tired after the 24 hour sleeper train the previous day!). We went out as a group to another Western type bar called MC Blues and had cocktails. It's run by this really great Canadian guy who actually did the same tour as us a few years ago and then decided to stay. It's easy to see why he stayed - we have fallen in love a bit with the place too. Matt decided to stay out drinking with the boys so I went off with the girls to do some more shopping and then got an early night!
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