Yangshou

Moon hill; Yangshou China; April 2011

After a 10 hour sleeper bus, we arrived in yangshou at 4AM in the morning. The manager of the hostel we are staying in hasseled us into buying some tours off him. We did a an intense day of cycling during which we climbed the hill in the picture above and went in to an underwater cave where there was a mud bath and hot springs. Yangshou is a very scenic place with otherwordly natural beauty, despite the mass of karaoke obsessed chinese tourists. The next day was spent on a bamboo raft floating down the li river. The public bus we used to get there was so full that the drivers assistant handed out plastic chairs for people to sit on in the aisles.

Climbing in Yangshou was also really fun, although a little scary at times. This made us want to do a lot more outdoor climbing if we get the chance and have the money.  Overall yangshou was a really good place to start china as a lot of people spoke english and menus were all easy to read.

Yangshou Photos

Hong Kong

Hong Kong; city skyline March 2011

We immediately found ourselves lost in the lights and confusion of hong kong. Our hostel was a little tricky to find (being located twelve floors above a shopping arcade) on the longest and busiest street in kowloon district. It took us over an hour to buck up the courage to go into one of ther local restaurants and eat.

The room we are staying in is just a bit noisy, the toilet shower combo in the bathroom is quite interesting, if you wanted you could use both at once you could. Luckily we both have earplugs so the traffic noise is not such a problem.

From hong kong we went to see the big buddha (its a big buddha), went up victoria peak on the tram and visited some very different markets. These included the bird, flower and goldfish markets. A day trip to macau was also squeezed in and was a weird experience. Macau's mix of  european and chinese culture is unlike anything we have ever seen.

Hong Kong