Guangzhou and Guilin

After doing some Internet in Guangzhou me and Rachel, the Brittish girl, headed back to the guesthouse to catch the others. We ended sitting in the dorm for quite a while, talking and drinking some beer before going for a really nice dinner at a muslim place along the riverside of Guangzhou together with Nikki, Francois from Canada and of course - Gregory (our local tour guide you could say). That was a really nice dinner, we had shitloads of barbequed lamb (you pay like 3 yuan = 3 SEK per stick and five was more than enough per person) and some other kebab-like things. Very nice!

After the dinner we continued along the riverside until we decided to take a cab to one of the bar areas in Guangzhou. This was a small street with a couple of lounge-looking bars, probably run by the mafia for money laundry (or so Greg said at least). After a beer and some talking we went for a small walk in the really expensive neighbourhoods of Guangzhou - large houses for ridicolous prices (really ugly though) with their own guards outside each building.

The following day me, Rach and Nikki spent walking around town and having a great time. We all were going on the night train at night, so we spent the day just walking around without a goal at all. Guangzhou is a beautiful city in many ways - there are lots of small alleys that are just wonderful. There are Chinese old men sitting along the streets more or less everywhere, playing Chinese checkers, go or mahyong (spelling?). It was interesting to watch them play and they almost everytime wanted me to sit down and play with them.

The train trip to Guilin was a nice one as well. The hard sleepers we had was reaaaalle nice - although I'm like 5 cm to tall for the beds and it was a bit cold when we woke up. But it was a nice trip all in all - took 13 hours and from 1 o'clock we slept really well (at least I did - I don't know about the girls really). The first hours we spent in the restaurant carrier, eating our take-away food from KFC, drinking beer, playing cards and generally just having a really good time. These girls are hilarious, it's so easy just to hang out and have a good time with them!

Today we've been walking around in Guilin. First we got a really nice hotel room with three beds. The guidebook says that there are no cheap places to stay - but that's obviously not true during low-season. We met a guy on the street who showed us his hotel. It was a two-star hotel, really nice and clean enough. The room-rates on the wall said 420 yuan for a three-bed room, but after a bit of haggling we got it for 60 yuan. Yes, 20 yuan each! That's less than I paid for the lunch at KFC (yes, we're a bit lazy sometimes)! After checking in, walking around a bit, seeing some nice temples (the temple of the moon and the sun) and eating lunch to get warm we went for the Solitary Beauty Peak which is a 66 meter high pinnacle with a temple on top in the middle of the town. The peak is surrounded by a temple area with temples and other buildings built hundreds or years ago for one of the princes. The three of us had an English-speaking guide showing us around and it was really interesting and amusing at the same time. The cold made it a bit hard to really enjoy the view though - it's less than 10 degrees here right now.

Anyway, now we're heading out for some dinner I think. Perhaps try some snake soup or wild cat - they are supposed to have really strange food in this town!

Also trying to upload pictures now - I hope it's working, so check them out!