Picking this entry up on Hainan, we gave ourselves a day’s grace before setting ourselves the challenge of making a 7am train to Sanya, the Southern tip of the island. 

This is a good example of China’s tendency to cater to masses. Hainan is a tourist hub, which is why it has several daily high-speed trains from Haikou to Sanya (North to South) of the same class as Xinjiang’s only high speed line connecting the province to the rest of China. But never mind. The beach in Sanya was a barmy twenty seven degrees, a statistic which failed to impress our Chinese friends (‘That’s not very hot for Sanya…’), missing the point of our amazement: this was February. Erm. Hello? After a fried wonton lunch we got the bus to Yalong Bay station for our train to Bo’ao.

Bo’ao is famous for temples and being the location of a recent international summit but we saw evidence of neither, once, this is, we actually got there. Admittedly this bit of our trip could have been better planned. The station was in the middle of nowhere but we muddled our way to the village and ate (again). By this time it was getting on for our last train of the day, from the next town along (Qionghai) to Haikou. I’d helpfully planned the trains so we had to make our own way from one town to the next to make our connection. Despite the bus routes having changed, we got back and went for Xinjiang kebabs.

The last day was an arduous trek to the station using inaccurate bus information and a taxi (when we gave up). Becca went off to wait for her fifty hour train to Harbin (on a seat) while Calum and I boarded ours, Guilin-bound (watching a loud altercation in our carriage). Around thirty-five hours before Becca reached Harbin, Calum and I found ourselves facing a six-hour wait in Guilin for transport to Yangshuo, where we were actually staying. We passed a man on the river’s edge who seemed to enjoy giving an occasional shout, and as dawn arrived we watched the promenade fill up with dancers.

Sharon and Stephen put Calum on to the hotel, and boy did they give good advice. We were greeted with fresh ginger tea (like warm ginger biscuits in liquid form) and got free bike hire and an hour-long tea ceremony thrown in (which turned into several hours and even more kettles’ worth of tea over a chinwag with the owner). The bikes meant we could explore the distinctive mini-mountains (called ‘Karst formations’) for which Guangxi is famous. The scenery was fantastic and it really felt like we had got to see rural China (albeit touristy rural China), complete with interestingly lacking planning laws.

During a visit to Yangshuo town, a few kilometres from our hotel, we stumbled upon fellow volunteers Juliette, Dan and James, and joined them for a dumpling and beer party. On another day we were reminded that official Chinese Government beauty spots are always worth avoiding. ¥20 granted us entry to the Grand Banyan Tree: a… big tree. Further down the road we saw signs for the Butterfly Spring but (literally) swerved away when we saw a giant plastic butterfly strapped to the cave entrance (‘nope’).

On the last day we picked a point on the map and attempted to cycle there. We soon enough recognised a landmark from our first trip out and realised we’d missed our mark completely. Ignoring our lack of map-reading skills, it was a brilliant day out. Then it was off to Guilin for our last train journey to Chongqing, a sleeper too, mercifully punctual and sociably timed.

—TJC

Featured image: Rural, stunning Guangxi, near Yangshuo.