We had booked for the River Li day trip and up before 07:00 I had a quick breakfast and we waited in the hotel lobby at 07:35 and the mini bus driver took us to where the main bus was. He was quite a character spoke interesting English with a lot of American movie sayings like hasta la vista baby. Our bus looked a crappy bus and it had a bucket in the middle of the bus walkway catch drips from the window above. We found a seat together down the back of the pass and the rest of the passengers were Chinese and quite a few kids. The bus ride was 40 minutes to where the cruise boats departed from. We all waited outside whilst the tour guide got our tickets. I bought some passion fruit my favourite and Penny had a hot corn on the cob. Got our tickets and we had to show our passports to get through security and we made our way to our boat, there were alot of people getting on to various boats. We sat at our table with a girl from South Korea and a young guy and his mum from Beijing. The weather was overcast with some low cloud and drizzle and cold. We went up on to the top open viewing deck and took photos when we saw some interesting areas. The River Li was very shallow in places but the skippers knew this river so well. We passed alot of villages and there were alot of people out on the river banks. There was a River Cruise tour guy who spoke good English and he was talking alot to the Chinese as we were sailing pointing out things and I guess some of the history and when he finished he would be back on his phone listening to music. Penny was pissed off and asked him to tell us in English what was happening as there were 8 of us on the vessel and his reply was not enough English speaking people on the boat so I am not doing it. Boy was she ropeable and if he was working for me he would not have a job. Penny went and spoke to our tour guide and explained what was going on and the this woman spoke to the young guy and there was a bit of a heated argument. So Penny said to the woman you are going to tell us what is going on with some commentary and she was not keen either, now Penny was totally pissed off with it all and it ruined the trip for her. We got some dialogue from our tour guide but not enough to satisfy pissed off Penny. We paid £50 each for the trip and it included English spoken tour guides. Before the boat landed at Yangshuo we were given a map and told to meet the bus at 15:10 so we had about 95 minutes to reach the hotel.
Got of the boat with passengers from 12 other boats and made our way up to the path to take us into town, we had to pass 400 m off vendors all selling the same items, it did not make sense? Then it opened up on the main road with shops either side selling what ever, food places, people trying to rent us a car, electric scooters, ride on bamboo boats and golf buggy ride into the main town, all we declined and made our way towards the hotel pick up. I found the way to the public toilets hey presto a toilet with a seat, no toilet paper not to worry bring my own and the last bastard left 2 humungus turds floating in the bowl? He must have been proud of them and wanted to show them off!! Came away from there and there was a German beer house, this place Yangshuo had a good feeling with bars all over which we have not seen alot on our travels, some restaurants with European type food. Found a German hippie type guy selling German sausage he spoke to me in Chinese and then when he saw me reverted to English. We bought a couple of T shirts and made the bus for 15:10 and we headed to Beauty of Crown Cave another tour £13 each.
We arrived there our tour guide was not talking to Penny don’t know why, well she did as Penny asked for more information and tour guide got on to her cell phone and Penny pointed out this was not very good. We got on to a small boat and the skipper took as up the river where the water was clear winding through small villages and land unfortunately there was rubbish deposited in a few places. Then we entered the caves and a few minutes later came out the other end and then we spotted cherry blossom trees unfortunately they were plastic as it was too bloody cold for them to be out. There were 5 locations where the people were in costume playing instruments or dancing it looked so made up and as soon as we passed them they stopped and got back on their cell phones. Got back to the landing spot and made our way through their shops to the main exit. The whole place was tacky they had so called rock sculptors which were plastic. The scenery was lovely they should have just left every thing natural. Glad to get out of there and we got bused back to town took over an hour. We went to the night market and found some where to eat, meal was average to below and then walked back to our hotel. The ladies at reception asking about our trips and we told them and they were suprised what we told them and they said they will look into this.
Back in our hotel room the aircon on and warming up, don’t like the cold and damp. My Nord VPN has been playing up, I have had a few issues with it here in China. Penny is using VPN Express and she has had no issues at all. I received an email from Nord and I have managed to get it working.
Maurice's Travel 