This train to Guilin was eventful- we were in a carriage on our own due to the train being packed. It turned out that everyone else on our carriage was part of a 120 strong group who were all teachers and family of the teachers going on holiday to the same place as us - Yangshuo, pronounced Yang-zoo... we think!
As it turned out we were in the cabin next to the school's English teacher. We were asked the usual questions by the English teacher (name, where we come from, etc), met the head teacher and was subsequently interviewed by the students who were related to the teachers and who were learning English themselves. Apparently chinese children learn from the age of 6 but most cannot afford to travel to English speaking countries and even when they do meet a westerner, they are too shy to test their English. So this was a perfect opportunity for them. After having photos taken with us, they left us to our train journey - the rest of the group were in a different carriage and it sounded like they had a terrible night, so we did ok in the end.
Anyway, we finally arrived in Yangshuo which is beautiful. It is quite a touristy place where a lot of Chinese people also holiday, but who can blame them?! The hills that are the backdrop to the town are similar to those in the film Avatar... apparently James Cameron must have drawn some inspiration from them, though the link is tenuous.
Today we woke up early and cycled with the group across Yangshuo, by rice fields and through the hills with our eventual destination being the Mud caves. On the way we climbed up to Moon Hill and got a fantastic view of Yangshuo.
At the caves we got our swimming cozzies on, got on a small boat and we were taken through the cave, getting off the boat a short way down to walk. We eventually arrived at a mud bath and floated & caked ourselves in the metallic-smelling mud! It would have been theraputic had there not been 13 others to share it with! Having finished we rinsed off in a cold water pool, then soaked in 'hot springs' and once clean we made our way back out of the cave in to the baking sun.
We hear it's raining across the UK today... we're thinking of you as we apply our sun cream!
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