Once we arrived in Guilin we caught a bus into the town center and then a taxi to Green Forest Hostel, by the time we did all this it was past 5pm and we didn’t want to do much other then check our messages and sleep, which is exactly what we did. Boring I know.
We woke up at 8am for our pick up at 9am, we had booked a bamboo boat ride from Guilin to Yangshuo (our next destination). We jumped on the bus to take us to the port (more like a flat section of the river where bamboo boats line up) and jumped onto our boat. The trip only lasted about an hour and then we were back on the bus. But the boat trip was fantastic, picture it, you’re on a little bamboo boat with a Chinese man who probably cannot even say ‘Hello’, floating on crystal clear river water, surrounded by limestone formations shooting up from the lush ground making it one of the most picturesque rivers our travelled eyes have seen. Sounds pretty good doesn’t it?
Somehow, Yangshuo was even more beautiful than Guilin. We got some dinner and headed back to Flower Hostel to sort out our onwards travel. We were told that there were no buses going from Yangshuo to Hong Kong (we later found out there most certainly ARE), which had been our plan. So our trip to Yangshuo turned from a 4 night stay to a 3 night stay; giving us enough time to head back to Guilin and catch a flight to the border of Hong Kong.
Once we woke up we decided we would rent bicycles and explore Yangshuo a little bit. We had been given a tip from a lovely couple (that were from the Czech Republic) to go to Green Lotus Peak and climb to the top, so after a morning of exploring we rode to the peak and started the climb. After about 40 minutes of slipping on dirt and using all fours to climb up the steep mountain we finally reached the top – and it was so worth it. The bushes opened up to a full panoramic view of Yangshuo and the Li River.
We rode for about 40 minutes until we finally found the natural beach along the riverbank. We quickly changed into our swimmers from our sweaty clothes and dove into the cold river water. We spent the afternoon here relaxing and cooling off before pedaling our bums back to Flower Hostel.
We woke up early (this time I’m serious about being early; 5:30am) for a taxi to the airport, which luckily we were able to share with another Chezch couple. After a short flight we were in Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong. We found a bus that could take us into Mong Kok, which was where our hotel, Din Dian Hotel was, which included the usual joy of customs, baggage check etc etc...
Our trip in Hong Kong was only overnight, but we decided it was enough time to go to the Michellen Star Resturant ‘Tim Ho Wan’s’ one last time; it was well worth the 30-minute wait to be seated. We had a serious conversation about weighing up the pros of moving to Hong Kong just so we could eat here more often.
We woke up early once more and heaved on our backpacks to make our way to the airport. We stumbled into a protest on our way, luckily it was much more placid then we had heard about. I better go, we have an hour before our plane departs and these airport chairs are good enough for a nap… Hey, I’m not a morning person. |