Late in the evening, we arrived to Gui Lin. The train station was a bit far from the town, so taking a cab was the best solution. But how to communicate the message? One semester of mandarin and I never got prepared for that, aaaand I had no wifi. Luckily for us, there was a Canadian trying to get to a business meeting in another city, so he asked if we would share a cab. We were happy to say yes. His Chinese was impeccable, but he had no luck, as he learned the dialect of Beijing. So, a nice Chinese student helped us set a deal and off we were. It was an excellent trip as the Canadian told us how he decided to live in China, for two years now, and some very amuseing stories. It felt like an instant friendship between al of us. Of course, we got invited to his girlfriend and his apartment in Beijing, counting second invite. The first one was to Shanghai, from the lovely girl that got my room for a month. Yeey, meeting people is so exciting.
We got off at the bus station and went to our hostel, which was just 500 meters away. We booked it two months ago, as for the visa to China, you need confirmed accommodation and the time duration of your stay, and it sounded nice, with its name Riverside Hostel. The pictures were nice and revues mentioned friendly staff.
Even though it was late, and it was my first time in China, the hunger beat the fear of unknown foods. It lured us out on the streets in search for some food. Hong Kong must have spoiled us as I didn't have to think of the words to say to either order or express myself, somebody would always understand English. The Cantonese dialect, spoken in Hong Kong, is pretty different than the mandarin one, which I started to learn six months ago, so Hong Kong never gave me the oportunity to shine.
Yet, there we were, in Mainland China, where nobody spoke nothing but their local dialect of Mandarin, and I had to pull out my symbol cards. I remembered that couple of sentences, but couldn't speak them out in an understandable way (started revising my mandarin tomorrow), so we just pointed to the pictures and got CRABS. I was hoping for the big ones, but these were tiny ones still with shells, with almost no meat in them. So, ignorantly, I started to open them, eating that tiny amount of meet, and after a couple of them, I finally asked the waitress how to eat them. With a wondering expression she basically told me to put it in my mouth and chew. ALL OF IT? Hmm, tried it and it was super. Like chips, and with it, their local beer Liq, it was excellent.
As we were munching on the crabs, I was looking down the street with all those tiny restaurants and buckets of living fish, vegetables and fruit, the terraces where everybody was smiling and inviting, young parents going out with their newborns in their hands and enjoying their late dinner. It was so natural, pleasant and full of life it just amazed me. Surely it can be a little too much at first, but I felt there is more to discover and I was looking forward to following days.
Later I had a hipohondriach thoughts about how I might be allergic to shell fish, and thoughts that I was going to die, but that just belongs to my craziness, not the surroundings. It is easy to get scared in a new bed, late at night.
The following day, we decided to take the boat on the river Li. We did not ask anybody for any info, just went to the reception. They told us it's a bit late, and we just missed the bunch that left a minute ago. We figured that the boat must go in the opposite direction as well, so we took a bus to Yang Shuo and for an hour and a half of heart attacks (the traffic rules are quite different in China, people over passing right, left, driving in opposite directions and then honking upsetingly when somebody goes towards them, demanding them to move, etc). We came to Yang Shou and sat in the first restaurant to get some info. We found out that no boat takes the passengers back up to Gui Lin, because the current is strong.
I started imagining factories that produce boats on a daily base just to send them to Yang Shou with tourists, and never returning again, so there must have been a graveyard where those boats go to, after serving their divine purpose and then piling them up, or just letting them find their way to the ocean, to serve to the poor fisherman... Aaaaah, that's why they do it. Anyways, back to reality, tHat seemed hardly likely, so we thought that they are trying to scam us, because conveniently, three of them had boats. We went to the docks and indeed, they are sending empty boats back to Gui Lin. Lesson number one: people are generally honest, we should believe them.
For comfort, I went souvenir shopping on the street market. I asked for the prise of the cone hats, and it was too much. I said my thank yous and carried my own way, thinking the hats are too big to carry them all around the bus stations and airports as we had thousands of places to visit still. Not being good at negotiating (check out the Wild, wild Fez post on this blog), but still the lady wounded up running after me, pushing the prise down to an affordable one (for the Croatian standard), and I went to the bus carrying one large bag of cone hats. Lesson number two: the people are honest while bargaining, too. Anyway, I am glad I didn't get ripped of like in Morocco.
The city of Yang Shou is beautiful and one should definitely take that touristic boat and than stay over in the city for three days or so. As we already payed for the hostel, we had to stay in Gui Lin, but we took that boat the next day:
The river Li is amazing with those pointy heals surrounding it and bamboo rafts quietly roaming on it.
The city of Yang Shou is an interesting one, with lots of bike rental shops, the nature being very close. That made me feel very sorry because you define toy have to sleep here to explore the country side on a bike, or just go hiking alongside the river.
Just a couple more days in Gui Lin and off we go on a volcanic island of Hainan to soak in some sun. The plants here gave me an allergy, so I was sneezing all of the time, but the scenery really made up for it.
