We awoke to another cloudy, rainy day. Reluctant to get out from under the warmth of our covers and into the cold room, we lay there discussing our next move.
P- It's totally making me dislike China. You know how I hate to be cold. This weather just sucks.
G- I agree. There is so much to see in this area, but it's not worth doing in the rain. Plus, I really miss the camaraderie that we had with other travelers in southeast Asia. It sucks that we have not met any other English speaking travelers that we can exchange information with.
P- Most of what we did in the other countries was because of tips we got from other travelers and here we're not getting that.
G- Between the weather and lack of other tourists, well, English speaking tourists, there are a lot of Chinese tourists, I feel very isolated.
P- I'm not liking it either. Let's pack up and go to Yangshuo. The guidebook says it's extremely touristy with very Western parts.
G- Let's decide how long we want to stay in Yangshuo and buy our train tickets to Chengdu before we leave here. That's the other thing I liked better in southeast Asia, we could wait until the last minute to decide when we wanted to move on and where we wanted to go.
P- I liked that better, but the train tickets sell out in China so we gotta book them early. That means we have to make more of a plan on where we're going. What's in Chengdu?
G- The pandas are there and it seems like the next logical place to stop before we go to Xi'an. I don't see a point in staying in this area, which is known for it's natural beauty, since the weather is shit and will likely stay shitty for a month or more.
P- Let's also see if we can eat lunch downstairs before we go. I'm hungry and do not want to have to roam around looking for food.
G- OMG! It's so damn cold down here!
G- Ugh!
Jason - Hello. Do you decide to go on the Li River tour?
P- No, Jason. The weather is too bad. We are going to take the bus to Yangshuo.
Jason - Oh, the bus not very safe. You must be very careful for your bags.
G- We grew up in New Orleans, Jason. We'll take our chances.
Jason - Ok.
G- If you would, please write this in Chinese so I can give it to the ticket clerk at the train station. Also, I want to show you some websites, that westerners read, where you should put some posts about your hostel.
Jason - Thank you, and will you take some papers about our hostel and put them in other hostels or give them to western tourists?
G - Yes, that's no problem. We like your hostel very much. We just wish it wasn't so cold down here and you'd put the heaters on.
Jason - Cannot put the heaters on because winter is finished. Come back in the summer.
The owners of the hostel had an adorable 4 year old daughter who was fascinated by Phyllis. From the moment we entered the lobby, she chatted, in Mandarin, to Phyllis, drew her pictures and Chinese letters, and sat virtually on top of her. It was adorable and ironic as Phyl has never been known as kid friendly, even though children seem to love her. She told us her name about 30 times, but try as we might, we could never say it to her satisfaction. She scolded us each time we incorrectly said it and finally gave up.
As the little girl, climbed on Mt. Phyllis, we perused the menu for lunch.
P- I need some soup.
G- Jason, is this dumpling dish a soup?
Jason - No, not soup, just dumplings.
P- What about this rice dish, is the egg on top of the rice on scrambled in it?
Jason - That we don't have.
G- Do you have this noodle and meat dish?
Jason - No, we don't have. Cannot make many things on menu. Kitchen still being built.
P- Ok. Can we have dumplings?
Jason - Yes. And noodles?
G- Are they on the menu?
Jason - No, not on menu, hostel employees eat that for lunch today.
G- Ok, we'll take noodles. Can we have any of the soups on the menu?
Jason - No.
G- Ok, then just bring us noodles and dumplings.
P- (to Gina) That makes sense, we cannot have what's on the menu, but we can have what's not on the menu.
When the dumplings arrived, they were served in a large bowl of broth, kind've like won ton soup, but with many more dumplings. Also, the noodles, with mushrooms, and what appeared to be bok choy, were in a large bowl of broth. We considered both of the dishes to be soup dishes and just shook our heads, chalking it up to the language barrier, or more specifically, the language confusion. We experienced one more round of language confusion trying to get a taxi to take us from the hostel to the train station.
G- Mai, can you call a taxi for us?
Mai - No call. We find one in street.
We hoisted our packs and followed Mai to the street.
P- This is not a busy street, how long will we wait for a taxi to come by?
Mai - Maybe not long.
P- Wouldn't it be better to call a taxi?
Mai - No call.
G- How much should the taxi cost?
Mai - Maybe 12 or 15 Yuan.
G- How will I know? Is there a meter on the taxi?
Mai - You will pay 12 or 15 Yuan.
G- Is there a box on the front of the taxi that will tell me how much I have to pay?
Mai - You will pay 12 or 15 Yuan.
G- (to Phyl) OMG! How will we know if we should pay 12 or 15?
P- I guess we'll just pay 15.
G- Ugh!!!
The taxi pulled up and I could see a meter on the dashboard. I never could determine why she did not simply say yes when I asked if there was a meter. Even if she did not know the word, meter, I described it and explained it's location in the car. As much as we were thankful when we found people who spoke English, the language confusion was turning our brains into mush.
The taxi dropped us at the street and we paid the amount (16 Yuan) shown on the meter. As we walked to the station, we were surrounded by people asking if we wanted bus tickets. Negotiating transportation had, thus far, been very stressful, so we could only focus on one task at a time, and the first task was buying train tickets. We ignored the bus ticket hawkers, telling them that we were taking the train, and they soon stopped following us.
We may have been mortified in the station, but the ticket purchasing experience went very smoothly. I slid my request, written in English & Mandarin, under the window. The clerk put my request into the computer, then wrote the amount on a piece of paper and slid it back to me. I pushed the money through and she gave me the tickets. Voila'! Considerably easier than the last time.
P- Grab your bag before someone hocks a loogie on it. We've already had one close call.
This loogie hocking is disgusting! I get that it's what they do, and they think nothing of it, but it is disgusting!
G- I agree. It's a constant assault on my ears.
P- The bus station is supposed to be right next door. I guess we'll be subjected to loogie hocking there too.
G- That is going to be more stressful because I don't have a translated paper to give them.
P- Let's talk to one of those hawkers and see if they have a bus going to Yangshuo and how much it costs.
We walked around for about 15 minutes trying to find the bus station ticket office and finally gave up and went out front to the buses. The hawkers immediately descended upon us and I said Yangshuo, and pointed to the name in the guidebook. One of the women nudged out the rest and showed me a paper saying 18 Yuan, so we followed her to the bus. We looked at the placard on the bus window and compared the characters to the Chinese word in the book. Once we confirmed that they matched, the deal was done.
We put our big packs in the luggage compartment.
P- What if we hand her our money and she just disappears?
G- I'll make sure the bus driver sees us paying her.
I made a motion indicating that I wanted to hand money to the bus driver. He shook his head no and indicated for me to give the money to the woman. Of course we were not given a ticket, so we just took our seats and hoped that we wouldn't have any problems. The bus ride to Yangshuo took 1.5 hours and was uneventful. We stopped frequently to pick up new passengers, but no unsavory characters got on the bus. We could not determine why Jason thought riding the bus was a dangerous endeavor.
P- What do you want to do?
G- I don't know what to do, but I do know that this cold, rainy weather is making me very crabby.
P- It's totally making me dislike China. You know how I hate to be cold. This weather just sucks.
G- I agree. There is so much to see in this area, but it's not worth doing in the rain. Plus, I really miss the camaraderie that we had with other travelers in southeast Asia. It sucks that we have not met any other English speaking travelers that we can exchange information with.
G- Between the weather and lack of other tourists, well, English speaking tourists, there are a lot of Chinese tourists, I feel very isolated.
P- I'm not liking it either. Let's pack up and go to Yangshuo. The guidebook says it's extremely touristy with very Western parts.
G- Let's decide how long we want to stay in Yangshuo and buy our train tickets to Chengdu before we leave here. That's the other thing I liked better in southeast Asia, we could wait until the last minute to decide when we wanted to move on and where we wanted to go.
P- I liked that better, but the train tickets sell out in China so we gotta book them early. That means we have to make more of a plan on where we're going. What's in Chengdu?
G- The pandas are there and it seems like the next logical place to stop before we go to Xi'an. I don't see a point in staying in this area, which is known for it's natural beauty, since the weather is shit and will likely stay shitty for a month or more.
P- Let's also see if we can eat lunch downstairs before we go. I'm hungry and do not want to have to roam around looking for food.
We packed our bags and went downstairs to do a little internet research on Yangshuo.
G- OMG! It's so damn cold down here!
P- Put on your scarf. Hand me my gloves.
Jason - Hello. Do you decide to go on the Li River tour?
P- No, Jason. The weather is too bad. We are going to take the bus to Yangshuo.
Jason - Oh, the bus not very safe. You must be very careful for your bags.
G- We grew up in New Orleans, Jason. We'll take our chances.
Jason - Ok.
G- If you would, please write this in Chinese so I can give it to the ticket clerk at the train station. Also, I want to show you some websites, that westerners read, where you should put some posts about your hostel.
Jason - Thank you, and will you take some papers about our hostel and put them in other hostels or give them to western tourists?
G - Yes, that's no problem. We like your hostel very much. We just wish it wasn't so cold down here and you'd put the heaters on.
Jason - Cannot put the heaters on because winter is finished. Come back in the summer.
P- (to Gina) If winter is finished, why are we freezing to death?
G- I don't know. Apparently it goes by the calendar and not the actual temperature.
As the little girl, climbed on Mt. Phyllis, we perused the menu for lunch.
P- I need some soup.
G- Jason, is this dumpling dish a soup?
Jason - No, not soup, just dumplings.
P- What about this rice dish, is the egg on top of the rice on scrambled in it?
Jason - That we don't have.
G- Do you have this noodle and meat dish?
Jason - No, we don't have. Cannot make many things on menu. Kitchen still being built.
P- Ok. Can we have dumplings?
Jason - Yes. And noodles?
G- Are they on the menu?
Jason - No, not on menu, hostel employees eat that for lunch today.
G- Ok, we'll take noodles. Can we have any of the soups on the menu?
Jason - No.
P- (to Gina) That makes sense, we cannot have what's on the menu, but we can have what's not on the menu.
G- Whatever, I just wish I could have soup.
When the dumplings arrived, they were served in a large bowl of broth, kind've like won ton soup, but with many more dumplings. Also, the noodles, with mushrooms, and what appeared to be bok choy, were in a large bowl of broth. We considered both of the dishes to be soup dishes and just shook our heads, chalking it up to the language barrier, or more specifically, the language confusion. We experienced one more round of language confusion trying to get a taxi to take us from the hostel to the train station.
G- Mai, can you call a taxi for us?
Mai - No call. We find one in street.
We hoisted our packs and followed Mai to the street.
P- This is not a busy street, how long will we wait for a taxi to come by?
Mai - Maybe not long.
P- Wouldn't it be better to call a taxi?
Mai - No call.
G- How much should the taxi cost?
Mai - Maybe 12 or 15 Yuan.
G- How will I know? Is there a meter on the taxi?
Mai - You will pay 12 or 15 Yuan.
G- But how will I know? Will you talk to the driver before we leave or is there a meter?
Mai just looked at me trying to digest what I was asking.
G- Is there a box on the front of the taxi that will tell me how much I have to pay?
Mai - You will pay 12 or 15 Yuan.
G- (to Phyl) OMG! How will we know if we should pay 12 or 15?
P- I guess we'll just pay 15.
G- Ugh!!!
The taxi dropped us at the street and we paid the amount (16 Yuan) shown on the meter. As we walked to the station, we were surrounded by people asking if we wanted bus tickets. Negotiating transportation had, thus far, been very stressful, so we could only focus on one task at a time, and the first task was buying train tickets. We ignored the bus ticket hawkers, telling them that we were taking the train, and they soon stopped following us.
Phyl stood next to a column with the bags and I got in a ticket line with my guide book and paper, translated by Jason. As we waited, we were treated to a cacophony of phlegm noises which echoed off the walls of the station. I was becoming extremely grossed out and turned to make eye contact and a repulsed face to Phyl when I saw a man hock up his loogie and expel it onto the ground about a foot away from my backpack. Phyl's eyes were wide and she returned my look of horror. Note to self: DO NOT PUT YOUR BAGS DOWN IN A TRAIN STATION!
This loogie hocking is disgusting! I get that it's what they do, and they think nothing of it, but it is disgusting!
G- I agree. It's a constant assault on my ears.
P- The bus station is supposed to be right next door. I guess we'll be subjected to loogie hocking there too.
G- That is going to be more stressful because I don't have a translated paper to give them.
P- Let's talk to one of those hawkers and see if they have a bus going to Yangshuo and how much it costs.
G- The guidebook says a ticket should cost about 15 Yuan. Let's check the bus station first.
G- I'll make sure the bus driver sees us paying her.
I made a motion indicating that I wanted to hand money to the bus driver. He shook his head no and indicated for me to give the money to the woman. Of course we were not given a ticket, so we just took our seats and hoped that we wouldn't have any problems. The bus ride to Yangshuo took 1.5 hours and was uneventful. We stopped frequently to pick up new passengers, but no unsavory characters got on the bus. We could not determine why Jason thought riding the bus was a dangerous endeavor.
As Guilin slipped away, we began to see Karsts in the distance. We were surprised to see that this area looked very similar to Ha Long Bay, but the karsts rose from the land rather than the sea. The rain continued to fall, and we arrived in Yangshuo in the late afternoon. We checked several hotels until we negotiated a good, off season rate at a hotel on the main street (Xi Jie), our room having a balcony overlooking Xi Jie.
