long time no blog

wow, it's been a while again since i have added anything to the blog. The biggest reason is probably the fact that although the past couple of weeks have been great for me, there maybe isn't anything that interesting to write about for the rest of you. Not a lot of cultural observations or such, just travelling and relaxing.

I spent a week in a place called YangShuo in GuangXi province, which is a funny little place. On one hand, it's very touristy, with just a couple of streets to the town centre, and mainly catering to the foreign tourists with their restaurants, guesthouses and souvernir shops. On the other hand, though, the landscapes and the countryside around Yangshuo is very steretypically Chinese, in style of traditional paitings, with all those funny shaped karst mountains, rice fields, rivers, waterfalls... water buffalos grazing in the fiels, farmers with their cone hats... all in all stunningly beautiful, even though it was cloudy and drizzly a lot of the time.

The week there was a nice balance of doing absolutely nothing, just sitting around drinking tea and talking to other travellers, and at other times going mountain biking (did quite a bit, a good 40-50 km in two days), rafting, and hiking along the Li river.

From Yangshuo, I took the bus to a village up in the mountaineous area, famous for its rice terraces, carved out of the mountain in all sorts of shapes, to enable agriculture in the difficult terrain. after having spent a week with other people in Yangshuo, it was great to be there completely on my own, staying a night in a little gueshouse as the only guest and walking up to the mountain after sunrise, feeling literally on top of the world, all alone. :)

And then, a 37-hour bus/boat trip.... uggggh.... Although it gave me the chance to try out the Chinese sleeper buses for the first time. Basically, it's just a normal coach, but instead of seats, you get three rows of bunk beds all the way through. Really funny, being in bed on a bus :)

But to cut the story short, I'm now on Hainan Island, China's own tropical paradise. And I do mean tropical paradise! It's really amazing, I would not have expected to find this in China, somehow I always had the image of china as this grey, cold, northern place. If something, this 3-month trip has definitely changed that image. Here I am, staying just a couple of minutes from the beach (white sand, palm trees, sparkling turquoise sea...), with sand in my hair and slightly sunburned but enjoying every little bit of it :)

And, I have also reunited with my travel buddy Ben, who has been here for over a week already. It's nice to spend a little more time with him before getting back home. Which I am really looking forward to now, by the way!


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