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What a let down...until our last day of course!

Longsheng, China


Well it rained on monday, so we didn't leave for trekking. We stayed in Yangshuo an extra day and went climbing in the afternoon. On real rocks!! It was brilliant - still a little damp but quite warm, and so much fun! Because of all the wet weather the mountainside was very slippy which made it tougher, but we all made it to the top! I was glad to have had another night for my legs to recover from the cycling and the jumping from friday! The following morning was stilll wet but we had to leave Yangshuo. We took a bus back to Guilin, and another cramped, busy, noisy bus for 2 hours to Longshen. Because the weather was so awful we could hardly see anything out of the windows, but when we were about half an hour away from Longshen the fog lifted a little (or rather, we drove above the fog) and we were in another world! We were really high up in the mountains with another new type of lanscape. We took another minibus for half an hour or so, on twisty windy roads making their way up the mountains, skirting round landslides and trying not to fall off the road towards the traditional Yao minority village of Dazhai. It was about 4.30 pm by the time we arrived so we had a quick walk around the village then had dinner. After dinner we played cards by candlelight as the village's power supply had been cut off by the storms. We weren't too hopeful about walking the next day, and surprise surprise, we woke up to the sound of rain! We braved it anyway and spent the day walking in the mountains and around the rice terraces so several viewpoints (Thousands Layers to the Heaven, Music from Paradise and Golden Budda Peak - none of which resembled anything like what they were supposed to!). The rain was OK for most of the day, only drizzling now and again, which was pretty nice because it was pretty hot! At lunchtime the clouds cleared a little, maybe for about half an hour, which lifted our spirits. After lunch the paths got smaller and smaller and more overgrown and the recent rain had turned a lot of them into streams so we were slipping and sliding all over the place and getting pretty fed up! I fell down and got completely covered in mud and then it started raining really heavily so we were all really glad when we got back to our hotel! The following morning we got a bus to Huangluo Village, whose women have the longest hair in the world. We saw their show that they put on for tourists (a little interesting, but they looked kind of embarrassed to be up there performing), then had lunch and went on to Ping'an Village. The village was pretty touristy, but nice, clinging to the mountain-side with teeny tiny alleyways and secret corners. We climbed up to see the Seven Stars with Moon terrace and the 9 Dragons and 5 Tigers, but again the fog was rather in the way! It was also freezing cold so in the evening we huddled up in our room with hot chocolate and Chinese soap operas. Which are hialrious by the way. Well, they were to us because we made up the storylines and dialogues for ourselves. We were all feeling pretty down because of all the rain we'd had over the 4 weeks, and pretty gutted that before we arrived in China they had had beautiful weather!
The next morning -- a miracle!! Not a cloud in the sky and boiling hot!! We raced up to see the moon and stars terraces before breakfast, which looked so different (mainly because we could actually see them!) from the day before! We ate breakfast outside and got sunburnt in 20 minutes, then bused it back to Guilin. We said goodbye to Ellen that evening, then Leah first thing in the morning, then Tina took Abe back to Fengyan and the China Experience was over!


permalink written by  JillR on April 24, 2010 from Longsheng, China
from the travel blog: And now for something different...
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permalink written by  Ian on April 25, 2010

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