Hmm...can't remember what i've done!

It's been a while so i've forgotten!

Well for the last couple of days in Yangshuo the weather was not too good so didnt venture far from the town...on my birthday i had a lie in then went to the local farmers market...complete with live and dead dogs!!! Wasn't that distressing but i'm glad i didnt actually see them kill one...does make you wonder what you are eating!

went to one of the parks in Yangshuo and climbed the karst there, wasn't very high but gave a good view over yangshuo. Lots of the cafes have upstairs dvd rooms so went and had a lazy afternoon then spent the evening at the lengendary Monkey Janes rooftop bar!

the next two days did virtually nothing! took full advantage of the fact all the cafes served western food...lots of pizza! did boring things like laundry at the speed queen ( the name is not a lie it only took one hour!) and finally burnt all the photos so far onto disk...theres going to be a very long slideshow when i get back!!!!

Left Yangshuo last thursday, could easily have stayed longer and just lazed around but would probably never have left especially as for the last 3 nights we were in a hotel rather than a hostel so it felt like luxury!

Got the bus back to Guilin, a lot quicker this time round...no stops for the police! Checked into the Backstreet Hostel and spent the afternoon looking round Guilin as i had only passed through before. Not much there really, same landscape as Yangshuo but not as pretty as Guilin is a big ugly town! Walked down by the river and saw the boats practicing for the Dragon Boat racing which takes place all over china next weekend. Hopefully whereever i'll be i'll be able to catch some racing! The sound of the drums was quite loud and you could hear it as you walked around Guilin.

The next day i went to the seven star scenic area in east Guilin, a big park with seven karsts (one shaped like a camel!) it is quite pretty but it was a bit overcast. As always, being China, there is something completely random and this time it was that the park was full of foam figurines of cartoon characters, animals, strange beasties, transformers, the olympic mascots, even the teletubbies! all very weird!!!! they also had a small zoo but it wasn't very nice, the animals looked very sad and they had monkeys with chains round their necks posing for photos with the tourists...not nice.

**just had a slight meltdown as i accidentally closed the travellerspoint window by mistake...luckily it saved what i had written so far...phew**

the next day was the journey to the Longji (Dragons Backbone) Rice Terraces, bus to Longsheng then a small minibus up to Ping'an- home to the Zhuang ethnic minority group. The village is made up of tradictional wooden houses built onto the hillsides, there are quite a lot of hotels but typically i picked a hostel where they didnt speak any english! but got a great room rate of 20 Yuan (1.40) when the other places were asking 50-100! think i was literally the only person there, i saw the owners to pay and check in and then never saw them again!

had an early night so i could get up early to climb up to the actual rice terraces but when i got up it was very misty so had to wait a while for it to clear. there are two observation points you can walk to fairly easily and i just did a round trip of them. the views are truly amazing, the Zhuang people started to build the terraces (to enable them to farm the mountains) in the 13th century and it took them until the 17th to finish! Also living along the terraces are the Yao people whose women have long ankle length hair. they follow you up and down the terraces trying to get you to take pictures of them with their hair down (for a fee of course!) and also buy the hand made goods they make. Its fairly annoying but they do it with good humour, they are much more persistent than the Zhuang women who are also trying to flog handicrafts!!

Back to Guilin in the evening then next day onto the train down to Hainan, the island of the south coast of China. Almost the scene of another train disaster....i had tried to book a hard seat (the journey was in the day and only 8hrs) but they didnt have any so got the ticket anyway in the hope that i could upgrade to a hard sleeper even though i didnt actually have to sleep....was quite worried as 8hrs standing on a train was not going to be nice. after lots of wandering up and down the train to find the right conductor i managed to get one...phew. I had to change for a bus at zhanjiang which was a further three hours and then onto a ferry for 1 1/2 hrs with very hard wooden benches for the journey over to the island. all in all probably my hardest journey yet especially with the 6/7 hour return trip the days before to Ping'an! Think i've finally learnt why the Chinese have an automatic sleep button as soon as they get on any form of transport.

So after what seems like days of travelling i am finally on Hainan the 'hawaii' of china...unfortunately its raining so not made it to the beach yet but am getting the bus to Sanya tomorrow which is meant to have some beautiful beaches so fingers crossed! very weird to see palm trees everywhere though!

also been bitten by an insect all over my ankles and legs which is not a pretty sight...must be about 35-40 bites in all and they itch like mad! went to the chinese chemist today to try and get some cream and some antihistamines and it took about an hour but i finally managed to get the right thing but not before they tried to give my the chinese traditional medicine alternative!!!

off to bed now to nurse my bites/stings!!!

have uploaded some more photos onto flickr!