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Hi everyone
This is Issy - I'm on my own at the moment as I've left Pat/Tish with the rest of the group at the restaurant - I couldn't handle being in a place that not only served RAT, but also served DOG !!!!!! My stomach did flips and I left so I thought I'd take the chance to update what's been happening.
We travelled by train (another one with "interesting" facilities) for 22 hours from noisy, busy Shanghai to Guilin, and then immediately by bus for an hour to noisy, busy, but smaller, Yangshou. I don't think we've been anywhere quiet and peaceful yet, and I'm not sure that we will in China, and possibly not HK.
The driving here is death-defying. There's one lane of road going each way, with a small amount of hard shoulder either side. However, there are very often SIX lanes of traffic as every vehicle on the road tries to overtake or undertake the vehicle in front, sometimes with one vehicle being overtaken AND undertaken at the same time !!! AAAARRGGHH !! Drivers overtaking do, however, have the courtesy to "beep" the vehicle in front to let them know they're coming through, so we should be grateful for small mercies I suppose.
We are quite out in the wilderness at the moment, with some very interesting rock formations - they look like giant fingernails coming out of the ground. I think we're supposed to be doing some cycling and hiking while we're up here and we're off for two nights leaving our heavy bags behind - so there may not be any blogs for a couple of days. After the exhaustion of the Great Wall, I'm certainly trying to find ways of getting round the major cycling and hiking parts of the tour and Pat's still deciding whether to join me or to go for it. We shall see what the next few days have to offer.
Thanks to everyone for the messages. It's REALLY lovely to hear from people back home and to know our travels are being followed. We can't believe that we're only into day 11 of the tour of 20 days and we still have ages to go after that. Hopefully China will have been the toughest challenge and everything will be a breeze from there on.
NICK: send me a MOBILET right NOW by special courier - the deluxe version with a shower attachment !!!!
Anyway, I'd better go as I've been in here ages and I've no idea how much this one costs. Never mind. It's worth it just to get a connection for once but we have still got to find a place that will let us download our photos and videos. Maybe we'll have to wait until we get to HK.
Lots of love to EVERYONE.
Issy (and Pat/Tish, of course)
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