We arrived in the pouring rain and were relieved to check into our homely hostel slightly out of town. It was surrounded by farmers fields and mountains with a few other buildings scattered around. It even had an infinity pool, if only it was freezing cold outside! It also had a roaring log fire, puppy, kitten and free foosball. What more could you want? 

We headed straight out for some food and took advantage of a free umbrella provided by the hostel. We romantically squeezed under one and went head on into the driving rain. 

We were giggling away, walking along the pavement and then BAMB!!! I was catapulted back and fell straight onto the muddy floor. I looked up to see a huge truck parked on the pavement in front of me…yes it was parked, so technically I was the hit and run culprit but still, a traffic accident none the less. It had really high tyres and a long extended rear, so as we were looking beneath the umbrella all we could see was pavement and not the huge truck at head height! I was pretty sore afterwards but had a quick look around to see if my blunder had been witnessed and whether or not I needed to laugh it off or silently weep. I opted for an angry approach with a ‘who the fuck just parks a truck along a tree lined pavement?!’ remark.

Once the weather cleared up we managed a hike up to a radio tower in town. It was up hundreds of steps, don’t know why I’d expect anything less. Signs at the top said it was private property and no entry but an old chap spotted us and waved us up asking for about 50p to see the view.

  
There were hundreds of short triangular mountains all around. Yangshuo was beneath us and spread across the flat land being built around the mountains so they literally rose up beside the houses and shops. 

Afterwards we wondered along the famous west street. A totally commercialised road full of shops and western restaurants. You could get hot dogs, German weizwurt or delicious Italian pizza, but it was well out of our price range. 

There were souvenir shops lining the pedestrianised road and sellers out front with gemstones, tea leaves, candy and jewellery. One interesting stall was selling honeycomb, it wasn’t like English honeycomb, it was richer and had a flavour that we couldn’t put our finger on. I have no idea how they made it as it looked like it was covered in moss and had tree branches coming out of it, inside was a slab of golden honeycomb waiting to be chiselled into small pieces. 

As its winter, the babies in China are wrapped up in sort of snow suits with a front little apron. One was wondering away from her dads stall, stood in front of a neighbours shop, squatted and pooed. I forgot to mention the baby outfits here are ingenious and have an opening on the rear so you don’t need to undress the child to change their nappy. This one wasn’t wearing a nappy though, so she just pooed onto the floor and stumbled away from the turd like the independent women she is.