After a brutal travel journey that lasted 39 hours and consisted of us living like Tom Hanks in The Terminal at Kuala Lumpur airport we finally made it to Guangzhou in China. It’s our second visit to China, the first of which was in January 2016 and we’re so excited to be back. Due to the long travel day we decided to pay more for a hotel room than normal so we could stay near the airport at a place which offered free transfers…it sounded great, in theory! Our first issue was trying to get connected to the airport WiFi, then we had trouble messaging the hotel to notify them of our arrival but eventually they said they would send the driver and told us where to wait. While waiting we witnessed a brawl between a taxi driver, customer and security guard so at least we had some entertainment to watch.

The driver turned up in a small white van and announced his arrival with about 20 honks of his horn. He then drove along an empty road and proceeded to honk his horn, he clearly does it so often that it’s just become automatic reflex. After driving for about 10 minutes he spoke on his phones translator and said he had to pick up more guests from the airport. Are you fucking kidding me? We were almost at the bloody hotel and he pulled a U-ey. I was fuming whereas Craig was playing it cool, that was until we picked up the guests and the driver said he had to pick up even more at which point Craig suddenly was at the same level of angry as me. I was so exhausted and just wanted to get to the hotel and sleep, the pick up service was an absolute joke. It should of taken 10 minutes but it took ONE HOUR! Once we checked into the poxy hotel with a bathroom that reeked of sewage we had to go back out to find something to eat. It was now 10pm and we hadn’t eaten anything since lunch time. There was a corner shop up the road where we bought some strange snacks and pot noodles, being careful not to pick the ones with snails in it or bread sprinkled with pork floss. We went to tap our bank card and the shop owner looked at us in confusion – clearly that wasn’t a payment option. Since our last visit China everyone has started paying on their phones for literally everything. They scan a QR code and boom, they’ve paid. So now we needed some cash but there weren’t any ATM’s near us and we couldn’t find one at the airport either. Luckily the hotel changed some of our US dollars at a very mean rate but at least we could go and buy our damn food.

I don’t think I woke up all night and the bed was pretty hard so I must’ve been wiped out. We didn’t have any plans to explore Guangzhou and instead wanted to leave the city and head for Guilin, an easy, cheap city in a very scenic area to the north west. We’ve been there before and albeit the city isn’t our favourite place it’s close to some areas we love and we just want a couple to days in a nice £10 hotel to recoup and do a bit of travel planning.

So, first stage of the trip was to take the horrible shuttle service back to the airport, search for an ATM in a different terminal and figure out how to buy a ticket for the metro. We then travelled across the city to the southern train station which took about an hour. The station was absolutely massive, like a bloomin’ airport. Everything was spread out and took ages to walk to, first we had to buy a ticket, they had a separate queue for English speakers and special needs but it seemed to just be used by everyone and took ages to get through. Next we needed lunch, we found a busy eatery and I tried to ask the worker for a vegetarian option and she was so patient with us using the translator app. We were given a very basic meal of rice with some boiled veg and wilted cabbage with soy sauce. Not very tasty but it filled the hole.

We were taking a high speed train from Guangzhou to Guilin which is almost 500km away and the crazy thing is Guilin is the next stop – so imagine if you fall asleep and miss your stop, you would have a 1000km detour to get back to your station and that blows my mind. It took just over 2 hours to get to Guilin but then we had to take a bus to the city centre, travelling just 14km but it took a whole hour! Finally we made it to our hostel where the staff spoke English and recommended a vegetarian buffet for just £3 so that’s exactly where we headed for dinner.

It was such a popular place although I’m not surprised as the price was incredible for all you can eat and it even included tea and some other random drinks like frothy milk or corn juice and desserts. For us it was a great opportunity to try things that might look a bit intimidating on a street stall or menu without the fear of paying and hating it. So we had a variety of goodies on our plate and the final thing I added looked a bit like bean sprouts. Under closer inspection they looked more like a root so I popped one on my mouth and instantly regretted it. What a way to start the buffet. It was revolting and the flavour kind of tainted anything it touched so I was desperately trying to remove every piece from my plate. I later found out it’s called fish mint root and it’s an acquired taste, apparently many Chinese don’t even like it and it’s said to have a fishy flavour, although I wouldn’t say I tasted fish, I just can’t quite put my finger on the flavour. Luckily there was some safe food on my plate like fried noodles, rice and steamed buns which I really enjoyed and each one had a different filling or flavour like red bean paste.

I tried some tofu which I normally hate and reminded myself that I still hate it, but they did have a different variety that I’ve never tried before and a chef was cooking it fresh on a hot plate. It was the really soft squares of tofu and it was sprinkled with chilli powder. I actually didn’t mind it, I think because it didn’t have much texture and just melted in my mouth I could handle it. Although I’m not sure if I’d order it again. There was also a make your own noodle soup stand but I had no idea what I was doing. I had to use chopsticks to grab some noodles and put them in a dunk-able sieve that I put in hot water, but I didn’t know how long to dunk them for so I tried to ask the lady next to me and she took me under her wing. She then pointed to some lettuce and asked if I wanted some so she proceeded to dunk that in the water for me. Then another lady came over to say hi and she spoke some English so explained what to do “you just add a little of this and this…” she said as she pointed to sauces but then she said “it’s better if I do it” so she spooned on the sauce and asked if I’d tried Chinese coffee. I had not so she marched me to the other side of the buffet to a bubbling cauldron of brownish fluid and I was confused because I didn’t know if she’d finished with my noodle prep and was suggesting I had a drink or whether it was actually to go in my noodles. It was the latter, so I guess it’s not the kind of coffee I’m used to and then I sprinkled the noodles with nuts, coriander and some random crunchy bits like rice crispy’s.

Back at the table Craig managed to spill a glass of milk across the table and onto my lap. It then proceeded to drip down my leg until it sufficiently looked like I’d pissed myself. There were only a few napkins on the table and they got used up instantly so Craig tried to get some more off a worker but the translation wasn’t working out. It was a bit of a disaster but other than that it was a great experience.

We left the buffet and took a stroll around the lakes in Guilin which were all lit up night and there were two big pagodas on the shoreline. Locals were dancing in a sort of tai-chi manner to some live music and the area had a lovely vibe. It feels great to be back in China.