We left Hong Kong behind and entered China. Shenzhen’s Luohu travel terminus was an enormous, multi-level maze, filled with people trying to sell fake watches, bags, dodgy iPhones, belts and wallets. Like so many markets in Asia, each stall differed only very slightly from the next. After 10 minutes you realise they are all selling the same tack. Still, I had my eye on a nice watch while Siobhan, as ever, was haggling brutally for something.
Behind us was the border, ahead was a large central open-air space, divided on several levels by escalators. All around were various waiting travellers, and local nefarious-looking types. The backdrop was like something out of a 1980′s Sci-Fi film, with gleaming towers, and seemingly pointlessly geometric concourses. To our left, more shady structures with small shopping units, and then a large train station, and our right – yet more concrete structures. Darkness was descending and with it a strangely sinister atmosphere, and we struggled to find a route through the concrete labyrinth to get to our mysterious bus station. Our curiosity was met with both disappointment and amusement when we saw what we were to be travelling (and sleeping) in overnight. An oldish bus with three rows of bunk beds, each one no wider than a full grown man, and no longer than a tallish Chinese man (which happens to be about one inch shorter than me). Once settled in and on the move, I actually found my bunk pretty comfy, and slept for a few hours. Throughout the 800 mile journey, we passed city after city, lit by neon, punctured by cranes and half-built tower blocks – China is indeed growing rapidly, if this slither of a view was anything to go by. The last 100 miles or so though, were through rural Guanxi Provence, and torrential rain pounded the bus. Every few minutes lightning revealed silhouettes of the monolithic limestone peaks that we had heard so much about. This was all very exciting of course, but I was confused. It seemed we were very close to Yangshuo, but it was 3am. ‘We’re not supposed to arrive there until 6 are we?’. I switched on the GPS on my phone which confirmed my fears – we would arrive at a painful 3:30am.
Our bunk-bus drove off and we were left standing with a Dutch couple, and three or four local taxi drivers touting their business – a lift or a (no-doubt dodgy) room to sleep in. We felt exhausted, confused and a little intimidated, but there was little alternative but to agree to be taken to our hotel in a clapped-out motorised rickshaw. 6 bonerattling kilometres later, we arrived. We had been delivered safely, and reliably, if uncomfortably and felt bad at the suspicion we had held for our driver and the other touts back in town. We had just been taken four miles for £3.50 at 4am. For half the journey I was mentally rehearsing what I would do if the driver turned out to be a tourist-molesting maniac…why the paranoia? As a traveller in strange lands you’re naturally on your guard, and I suppose caution is certainly sensible, but I think that experience taught me to trust in the good of people a little more, and to give potential tourist-molesters the benefit of the doubt. We sat in the dark deserted grounds of the Yangshuo Mountain Retreat, and waited for a dawn revelation.
A Honeymoon Idyll.
As the sky brightened, the scenery revealed itself as some oriental painting, complete with towering clumps of bamboo, the iconic karst peaks, lush vegetation and a slow moving river flowing at the foot of the hotel’s gardens. With the sunrise came butterflies the size of small birds, and dragonflies, then the hotel groundsman who gave a courteous ‘hello’. Soon we were checked-in, fed and in our honeymoon bed once again where we did what any newlywed couple would do in our condition – slept until 2pm.
The place was rustic, but comfortable, and the views from the garden were of the sort that you just needed to sit and stare at. Gawping. We did a lot of that. By about 9 or 10am the rafts would come. The traditional mode of river transport on the Yulong River (and many rural Asian ones) is the simple bamboo raft, powered by bamboo pole. In touristy Guanxi province, the rafters take holidayers in twos or threes in a virtually endless procession downstream. Mostly Asian passengers with varying degrees of balance, excitedness or plain fascination towards the strange western faces on the riverbank. We felt like a feature of their tourism experience as they called out to us “herro!…nee hao…herro!”. We waved back shyly and continued eating our steamed rice and Chicken Gong Bao. An American couple got more vocal – replying to the rafts with a gutsy “Hi there! Nee How!”.
It was a pretty stunning location to spend 8 days of our honeymoon in. We explored the countryside on bikes, passing through some very poor farming villages, but although basic, they struck me as happy places. Perhaps I’m being naive, even patronising – I hope I’m not – but the villagers did seem happy despite (or due to) the lack of western luxuries. No rushing about, no commute, and no X-Factor (well, don’t count on that). Certainly not hungry anyway; the river provides an endless source of fish, and the lush fields grow an abundance of rice, fruit and vegetables. They also have water buffalo in those fields, which, I’ve discovered, may be my new favourite animal after Elephants and Boxer dogs. They’re essentially amphibious cows with giant horns that the farmers use in the paddy fields where tractors would get otherwise bogged down. They trump lizards I think, but probably are at an equal standing with frogs and gibbons. All hail the water buffalo. Organic submersible tractor.
We were taken down the river on a bamboo raft. When we arrived at the jetty, a large group of raftmen looked up at us refusing to budge. A teenage boy got the short straw and was urged forward – he nervously took the helm and clumsily got us underway, much to the amusment of his elder peers (and a small kid) on the bank. We weren’t sure what the reason for the raftmen’s reluctance was until around half an hour into the journey when the skies around us erupted with fork lightning and torrential rain. It was absolutely fantastic. We stopped for shelter and a Tsing Dao beer on a mid-river raft-bar, while the river grew in depth with rainwater and the thunder roared through the hills.
Yangshuo town was nice enough, we wandered about, got massages, pedicures (Mrs Doyle not me), manicures (Mrs Doyle again), ate the fantastic 10p custard tarts, plenty of Chinese food, and of course some bartering for cheap goods, which I must say, Mrs Doyle is extremely good at. Here is what happens:
1. Enter shop/stall. Do not make eye contact with seller until you see something you fancy. Eye contact means they will pester you even more.
2. Handle the desired object. Lets say its a silk dressing gown (for Mrs Doyle of course). Scrutinise it. Nod nonchalantly when the seller says things like “yesh. You lih dis. Dis bery nice. One hundrer percen sill. Real natruh…You wan try ih onn?? Very nice”.
3. You ask “how much?”
4. They reply with massive figure like 650 Yuan (£65).
5. You laugh and look shocked, saying “ooh no, sorry, we don’t have that much. Sorry we are wasting your time”, and begin to walk away.
6. Seller stops you and hands over their calculator for you to key in what you were hoping to pay. You enter a very low figure like 60 Yuan.
7. Seller looks shocked and a bit annoyed. Enters 400.
8. You repeat stage 5. Then when you’re given calculator again you enter a little more…like 75.
9. Seller now a bit more annoyed tries again for a higher price.
10. You walk away. At this point you need to convince them that you’re serious about your price. Do not waiver – it weakens your position. Continue to walk and the price will lower accordingly.
11. Seller calls you back, each step you take inducing a lower price, which tumbles from “300″…to “200…160…120…. 90… Okay okay 80″. At which point you turn around hand over the cash gratefully and walk away with a cheap silky number.
I was pretty shocked at firstly, how much the sellers are willing to drop to get a sale, and secondly just how determined Mrs Doyle is to get a bargain. Her technique seemed harsh at first, so I acted the role of mute and dutiful husband – the keeper of the purse, and soon started to quite enjoy watching these little exchanges play out. As Siobhan says, “they’re still making a profit, otherwise they wouldn’t sell”. True enough, just not a very big one.
One day we took a Chinese cookery class, and discovered just how much heat a Chinese chef has to endure in the kitchen. 35 degrees in the shade plus a smoking hot wok is sweaty, sweaty work. No wonder their cooking technique minimises time spent at the hob – our local speciality dishes of beer fish and gong bao chicken took no more than 3 minutes to stir-fry. They tasted amazing.
Our time in Yangshuo was short in the grand scheme of things, but it was certainly memorable, and pretty close to perfect. I’m grateful to the staff at the hotel who were every bit as nice as the reviews on tripadvisor said. As I said goodbye to them on our final day, I confess I got a little lump in my throat. I soon perked up though – we were onto the next leg of the trip…the luxurious leg; the golden silky diamond-encrusted leg; we were in a Taxi to the Shangri La Hotel in Guilin 98 kms to the north.
Horizon Club anyone?
Hello. I would like a room with marble toilets, a leather-topped writing desk, a gigantic bed, many small branded notepads with matching pencils, a telephone by the bed; on the aforementioned desk and also by the aforementioned marble toilet, I will also require a free bottle of wine, a fruit basket and a cake with Happy Honeymoon written on it, a shoe polishing kit will be needed, as will a large TV, robes and full use of the Horizon Club Lounge, where I will take breakfast, free canapés and drinks at 5-7pm every day, as well as utilising a dedicated concierge service. Thank you. Well, we are on honeymoon.
The Shangri La. A massive luxury hotel in the largish town of Guilin – also a Mecca for tourists, but for us it was all about living it up like super-rich loafers. Which we did. On our final day though, we joined a cheap and cheerful coach trip up to the Longji rice terraces. Hard to describe the place, as it was like no landscape I’ve ever seen. The tour took you into the hills and up high into some ethnic minority villages, where the local Yao women never cut their hair, and have elaborately constructed coils on their bonces. Wooden houses perch on steep slopes, and where the houses don’t perch, the slopes are cut into hundreds of steps – rice terraces, for growing all sorts of crops as well as rice. The resulting landscape resembles a real life 3D contoured map, and was another one of those just-stand-and-gawp type places. We returned to the hotel to pick up our baggage, sweaty and exhausted, before making our way to Guilin train station for the fourth and final destination – Macau for one night and 2 days of gambling and hedonism at the Venetian Resort.
The Moon on a Stick.
We reached a summit of excess at the Venetian. The hotel is gigantic, and has all the amenities of a central city district within it’s faux-European style walls – plus a gambling hall the size of, well I’m not sure really…just believe me, it was enormous. As were the other Casinos in Macau, which is building a mega-resort to cater for the huge Asian market of a billion or so which sits on it’s doorstep. The result is odd. The casinos are massive, no expense has been spared in their construction, but the atmosphere within the gambling halls seems a bit sanitised. This was my first visit to a casino, and I was expecting more edge, more excitement, but it all seemed a little serious, but highly surreal at the same time. No one was drinking – Asian culture I guess, which surprised me given the quantities of money they were throwing at the tables…20, 30, even £100 minimum bets. I don’t get it. Perhaps you need to have money to burn to want to risk losing so much. After our moon-on-a-stick honeymoon we hadn’t much spare. We had some wine, and an italian meal in ‘St.Mark’s Square’, then lost £40 on a roulette table at the Hard Rock. That was all the gambling we could muster.
The old town in Macau was cool. The place has a bizarre mix of Asian and post-colonial Portuguese culture and architecture. Some streets reminded me of Santiago, others like Penang or old Beijing. We were winding down for our flight home, and saying goodbye to chopsticks for a while, but Asia didn’t want to lose us without a fight. She had sent Typhoon Haima to make the ferry crossing from Macau to Hong Kong airport as unpleasant as possible. 45 minutes of gut-churning sea later we arrived at the airport. 20 minutes on and we were eating a much-needed Pizza Express feast while the weather raged outside – strangely similar to how it looked at Heathrow three weeks earlier. Honeymoon, that’s it then. Done.
