Back to our adventure, to add to Emily being mad that
we were “running late,” I had to go to an ATM because I didn't have any cash on
me to help pay for a taxi. I stopped at the ATM across the street, but neither
machine would accept my card. Emily was getting really irritated that we hadn't
left yet (note: it was about 8:30-9 am and our flight was at 12:20). We got in
a taxi and arrived at the airport at about 9:30, so we were 3 HOURS early for
our flight. I know it's better to be safe than sorry, but seriously? The airport felt super empty which for some
reason kind of made me feel uneasy, but because it was so empty we went through
security and everything very quickly which was nice. We then got some lunch and
Emily wanted to find a battery for some water filter thing she had. She asked
if we would be sitting in the restaurant for a little longer while she went to
look for a battery. We said that was
fine and just sat there talking for 15 minutes… 30 minutes… an hour… no sign of
her. We waited a little longer because
we figured she’d be coming back to where we were, but she just went to the
terminal at some point and didn’t inform us.
This is a good start to a five day trip, huh? However, as we were waiting and Braden went
to search for Emily, he ran into this girl, Allie, who was traveling to Guilin
without a group, so she joined our group.
We finally started to board our plane just before
noon. As we flew on our 2.5 hour flight,
we were served beverages (water and a drink of our choice) as well as a
meal. I can’t remember the last time I
had a meal during a flight, and even though it wasn’t the greatest meal it was
still nice to have. As we started to
land, I could see hints of the hills of the gorgeous Guilin out the
window. After we landed, I found out
that we would actually be staying in a nearby town to Guilin called
Yangshuo. As we were trying to figure
out all of the things we wanted to do while in the area we were also trying to
figure out how we were going to get to Yangshuo. We ended up hopping on a bus that took us to
the actual city of Guilin, and then we planned to change buses to go to
Yangshuo. As the bus drove through the
city, we realized how crazy and chaotic the roads seemed. There were so many motor bikes, bicycles,
vehicles, and people crossing this huge intersection with, what seemed to me,
very little organization. We got to the
bus station and were trying to figure out what bus we needed to get on when
these two young Chinese girls (probably middle school or early high school age),
who were completely gaga over Braden, started to help us find our way to the
correct bus. We got on this bus that
cost us 18 Yuan (about 3 dollars) to get to Yangshuo; we later found out this
wasn’t a legit bus from the actual bus system but rather a bus that was more
independently run and would make more stops… kind of sketch if you ask me. On the bright side, as we drove into town we
were gradually surrounded by the amazing hills/mountains that make the area
famous. It was breathtakingly beautiful
out there and, during the drive, the sun was setting giving the wondrous
mountains a beautiful backdrop. In that
moment I knew I had made the right decision to skip on the Great Wall, the
Forbidden City, and the Terracotta soldiers and come to this area.
When we finally made it to Yangshuo, we ran into
another road block. We didn’t know
exactly where the hostel we planned to stay in was located. We walked up and down the street that we knew
it was on without a clue of where it could be.
We asked many different people who would point us in the direction we
just came, and then we would walk a little bit back the way we came and would ask
someone else who would point us back the other way. It took us a good 30 minutes to actually find
the place, which made sense because it was kind of tucked away in a back
street. The hostel was called the No
Kidd Inn and was this cute, colorful five story hostel with a roof top “bar”
(which actually had a great view of the area surrounding the hostel which
included beautiful hills and a river, but the bar wasn’t much of a bar) and
very friendly staff. The best parts of
the hostel though were the fact that it only cost about $7 a night to stay
there and that there was this little puppy that lived there who was one of the
cutest little things! We got the keys to our rooms and dropped our stuff off
before going out to get something to fill our empty stomachs. We walked around a bit but then got to the
point where we were so hungry that we just wanted to get food, so we ate at the
next restaurant we came across. We
perused over the menu a bit before deciding what to get (mostly based on the
pictures they offered since very little was in English). One of the things we got was fried shrimp
which didn’t look terrible in the picture, but when they brought out the dish
we were less than pleased with the outcome.
They were these little one inch long shrimps that were caught in the
nearby river; they were then lightly battered and deep fried whole, eyes,
antenna things, shell and all. When put
in the mouth your tongue was greeted by either a taste of cardboard or poop…
appetizing huh? Not much of that dish
really got consumed. We then stopped by
a little convenience store to get some snacks since our dinner wasn’t very
filling. We went back to the hostel, and
Allie (who I was sharing a room with) and I spent a good amount of time just
talking about random things. It was a
nice ending to an interesting day.
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