We took our 3rd afternoon and night sleeper train from Yichang to Liuzhou, This time we were blessed with soft sleeper compartments, 4 persons instead of 6, with thicker mattresses, and a door! The train was the oldest and roughest so far, glad not to be in the hard sleeper class - very smokey and dirty (it appeared nobody took notice of the 'no spitting' signs either)! The scenery, beer, music and Uno helped pass the time, Mash potato pots and tuna fish for lunch, Noodle Pots for dinner! Arriving very early, we all shared 'day rooms' for a couple of hours to shower and let the sun rise. Breakfast was from a stall opposite the hotel, fried dough pastries - sesame seed and spring onion, egg, and egg custard.

We took a bus to Yangshuo. Very tired today, the train ride was quite bumpy and noisy.

Nearer to Yangshuo the scenery was beautiful, we could see the hundreds of huge Limestone Karsts appearing, lots of fields, farmers and water buffalo too! The weather had improved - we had left the mist behind.

Very nice hotel in the centre of the town area, which was quite small (the first time we were able to walk from the bus station) there were lots of cafes and restaurants with English signs and menus, happy hours, pizza, cheeseburgers etc, actually a pleasant surprise, it would make things a lot easier for a dew days with english speaking locals around. We had lunch with the group, it was burgers and tuna/club sandwiches all round.

In the afternoon some of the group arranged to cruise the Li River, unexpectedly we boarded small, bamboo style rafts (made from drainage pipe) for 4-6 persons with the engine and propellor mounted on the back like a longtail boat.

The tall limestone karsts and the scenery were stunning, our guide showed us the same picture/view on the 20 Yuan note (see cheesy picture) also lots of ancient 'imaginary' pictures and shapes depicted in the rock - 9 horses, beautiful lady etc - they were very hard to see. Some of the passing boats with Chinese on board squirted us with water pistols - they obviously knew what to bring - strangely, we couldn't see them for sale anywhere.

In the evening we explored the town and markets, dinner by ourselves the Mexican and Greek pizzas were very, very good. Next a couple of evening Mo Ji Tos at Monkey Janes Rooftop Bar. We watched Cat and Kathi lose at Beer Pong to Monkey Jane, throwing ping pong balls into pint glasses - loser gets naked... or buys 6 shots!

The next morning we had dumplings for breakfast in preparation for the mammoth bicycle ride, I (Matt) had especially been looking forward to upgrading to the electric cycle option (since we left Beijing), but very dissapointed to only be offered an big electric moped with a battery which would only make it 12 of the 20 km round trip. We had taken our Straw Hats, because it was very hot and sunny, luckilly there was a breeze to help us cope with the improved weather. It was a very bumpy ride, with very firm seats, the scenery helped make up for the sore bums the next day, but we also climbed the 800 long, steep steps to the top of Moon Hill for better views of the surrounding area.

We also stopped for a quick traditional costume change by the river for photos and we tried a freshly squeezed sugar cane juice drink! Refreshing!

Lunch was at a local persons farmhouse, they took the table and chairs to the roof top for us (5th or 6th floor) and we brought them back down. We cycled back along the road, funny to watch the chinese tourists with tandems racing Cat and Nicky with theirs. Our last night in Yangshuo and also with Cat who stayed behind to travel onto Vietnam, we all enjoyed hot plate meats and vegetables, a few of us went to see the famous Impression on Sanjie Liu Lightshow, from the same director as some of the Beijing Olympic lightshow, with 600 performers on the Li River, the first performance of the evening had sold out with 2,500 seats. It was spectactular to see complete, with singing, bamboo rafts, LED bodysuits, giant floating moon dancer. We had big banana, and berry cream gateaux cakes from the bakery for dessert - excellent!

After a trip to the bakery for a savoury breakfast, sausage topped bread with sesame and spring onion and a pork fluff, sausage and condensed milk? topped bread (thought it was melted cheese) Yuk, I brought a peanut dumpling outside instead. we spent our last morning in Yangshuo with some of the group at the Cooking School, we went to the marked and saw everything! Fruit, vegetables, spices, noodles, live animals and fish, cooked meat, chopped meat - Yes there were rabbits and dogs, but no cats! Very interesting and busy with locals - lucklily no mopeds allowed into this market! On the way out a big fish jumped out of its bowl and splashed Luci's leg, hehe!

At the cookery school we were given our meat and vegetables, and shown how to prepare them using a large Meat Cleaver, to make 1) Steamed Chicken with black pepper, chinese prune, goji berries and ginseng 2) Fried pork with pepper, carrot and garlic shoot 3) Eggplant with Chilli Paste 4) Cabbage with Garlic 5) Egg Dumplings with pork, mint and chilli filling! Matt excelled here past the Teacher offering the best colour and texture of the group, Leo the Chef proclaimed that there were dumplings, but in Matts wok there is Art! The conversation over lunch and the return journey was mostly re 'The Art' some claimed their burnt or saggy dumplings were comparable :-P

Later in the afternoon, after a peanut butter waffle and pizza slice snack we took a bus to Guillin and boarded our last late night sleeper train with the group to Shenzen the border point to enter Hong Kong. Luci played some Uno and Matt rested up, still with a very sore throat. Noodle Pots for Dinner!