my weekend in China

me in front of the Li river after our raft trip
the ladies from Longchang with the long hair like a hat on their head
the Li river in Yangshuo... it was foggy
West Street in Yangshuo
all my purchases... nunchucks for my dad, some rice alcohol (when in china right????)  some painted bottles, a spoon made from ox horns, jade chopsticks, little asian dolls, a jade stamp that a man made for me with my initials, a scroll paining of Yangshuo, and an embroidered tablecloth from Longchang... I am a bit of an impulse buyer... 
 
the rice terraces in Longchang
Ok so this past weekend I went into southern china with my friend Tiphaine who is from France so obviously neither of us speak any mandarin... thank goodness for our china guidebook with common travelor phrases in the back... So Tiphaine bought overnight bus tickets from a guy in Shenzen which is right aross the HK/China border like 2 weeks ago. He spoke very little english but enough to understand her and she thought she bought round trip tickets... when we got there... we asked a person in the little travel agency she booked at to ask the lady in chinese to make sure they were round trip... they were not... so it was liek 200 more HK dollars than they shoudl have cost.. we were ripped off... we were pissed so we demanded our money back and were having this girl translate for us and it was a huge ordeal for like a half hour... Finally we got most of our money back and went to try and find the actual station that sells tickets so that we couldn't get ripped off by travel agencies... Meanwhile we run into a guy from England who is travelling alone and to the same place we are going so he joins us on our mission since the train tickets are sold out so a bus is the only option... After asking several people who couldn't help becasue they didnt speak english we finally found the bus station ticket kisok... we buy tickets and then wait for the bus... The bus was actually really really clean and it was about an 11 or 12 hour ride overnight to Guilin in China... The bus had beds instead of seats and was really comforable given that it was still a bus... A guy from Holland a few years older than us was on the bus as well next to me so I felt pretty safe... My Chinese roommate had warned me right before i left that the buses were reallly really unsafe in terms of people stealing and the busses crashing... needless to say i was really freaked out and then planned to stay awake through the whole bus ride... But with our 2 new travelling friends i was able to sleep (with my passport and money in my money belt!) We arrive a little later than expected in the morning (which will be a common trend) and hopped on another bus that was supposed to take 1 hour (it took 2.5) to Longchang. we bought the ticket from a kid who had a badge saying he worked for the ticket office (which he didn't) because he ripped us off again... When we finally got there we started out climb up the hill to find a hostel... In Longchang there is a cetrain ethnicity of people there and the women grow their hair out down past thier knees... they then wrap it on their head in special designs... its kind like wearing a hat haha... They hand embroider fabrics and sell lots of little trinkets... they were lined up along our hike up to our hostel so we got to do some shopping!!! WE found a hostel after we were taken by a little old lady (she was literally like 4'6")... she took us up to a room and after much translation problems figured out how much she was asking for it and paid her... it was pretty clean and right on the side the the hill with a great little view... So Longchang is famous for its Rice Terraces which are absolutely stunning... There are hills and hills of terraces all handmade in straight lines into the hills to grow the rice... After putting our bags in the room, we set out on the trails to go to the viewpoints on the Terraces... we hiked around there for about 4 hours and it was so beautiful.. we had met a retired Canadian couple earlier on the bus who were staying in a hotel by our hostel who liked meeting people while they were travelling (they had already been travelling asia for 5 months) so we had dinner with them... THey invited a retired french couple and we invited a french guy who was a little older than us that we had met so it was quite a dinner group... I was the only one who didnt speak french so i didnt understand most of the table conversation :( It was ok though cause i talked with the Canadian man and the french guy our age cause he would speak english with tiphaine and me when i was listening in...It was a nice little dinner and we were so exhausted that after we went to bed cause we had to catch a bus the next day at 730am to Yangshuo which was our next destination... 

many hours later than the time quoted, we arrived in Yangshuo! It is a little tourist town south of Guilin and has 2 major streets that sell things and have hostels... The most famous street is called West Street...  We had soo much fun walking up and down this street several times buying lots of souvenirs! We must have walked the street at least 10 times while we were there for a day and half and found new things each time :)   We then took a bike ride through the countryside where people still farmed with ox to plow and did everything by hand... there were even old people and kids out in the farms! the people still carried the two baskets on each of the bamboo stick that sat on their shoulders... we saw women with their babies in the baskets! It the rural area it was like the world hadn't changed in the past 30 years... The next day we took another bus up to a part of the Li River so that we could take a bamboo raft down with huge and beautiful limestone hills all around! The minute we got on the bus this woman started bugging us about buying a ticket from her for the raft... this went on for at least 20 minutes and she didnt speak english so she just talked at us in chinese and pointed on a map... we kept saying no and finally had to ignore her... once we got there she shooed all the other women away that were going to sell us tickets so that we had to buy them from here... there were only two other tourists there and they were both chinese and spoke a little bit english so they helped to translate what we wanted to do to the lady... we went back and forth bargaining on price til we finally settled on $70 yuan... the man told her in chinese that price and she accepted and then got us onto her raft... after about 5 minutes on going down the river she asked us for the money... we gave her $70 and she said 90... again we were being ripped off... this time we wouldnt let her we were were basically talking sternly to her and telling her NO! this went on for another 5 minutes and then she said 10 more or i have no money... we said NO again... she kept telling us no money and we said NO to paying her more... This time we knew she understood how much we would pay her cause the man told her in Chinese and she knew she was trying to rip us off too cause she was laughing while we were screaming No at her... we then pulled off to the side of the river to get more gas and a guy got on the boat and the lady got off and he took us the rest of the way down... he didnt try and talk to us or get money from us so it was a relaxing rest of the trip like it should have been from the start! we went 20 kilometers down the river and ended in a little town... It was a really cute little town with more vendors... surprise surprise.. but it was nice to walk through... we hopped back on a bus to take us back to Yangshuo... We walked West street again, got some dinner, and then got back on a bus to take us back to Shenzen so we could cross the border back into Hong Kong... This bus ride was supposed to take 11 hours and its took 13.5! The lady selling us tickets promised it was a bus with lots of foreigners cause it was a travel agency on west street, and she promised it was clean... We figured it would be the same bus as the one that took us into china... Well it wasn't... we got on the bus and it was all old chinese people and it smelled like the worst smelling feet ever and i wanted to puke. The blankets hadnt been washed in years and the pillows had no pillowcases so we know those hadnt been washed either... We were absolutely disgusted... It was the worst bus ride ever... no one spoke english at all so we had no idea where we were ... when we finally got into Shenzen it was the wrong bus station... now we had to figure out how to get to a border crossing!!! This phrase was not in our china travel guide... luckily we saw two europeans walk out like 15  minutes later after we had been trying to describe border to a taxi driver and they were able to get a taxi who knew where to take us cause they were going the same place and knew the correct name.. we shared the taxi with them and made it back to Hong Kong...  I have never had such a frustrating but fun weekend! It was so nice to get home to my dorm with my hard bed... and i never thought i would say that haha