Travel to Yangshuo - Part I (Dyanne's Version of Events)

So, 17 hours after checking out of our hotel in Shanghai, we are nearly to our next destination.  But we do have two more stamps in our passports!  Yangshuo is still about an hour and a half bus ride away.  To be fair, when we set off this morning we didn't expect to arrive in Yangshuo until tomorrow.  Reid accurately recounted our adventure getting onto our plane in Shanghai.  Our great relief at getting onto the plane after taking about twenty minutes to check in and the most thorough screening we have ever experienced--they detected a pair of sewing scissors that had made it through two security check points already.  It's a good thing that the lines here aren't very long (for check in or for security) because both take much longer than in the States.  So, by walking right up to the counter it takes about the same amount of time as it would at home.

After flying to Hong Kong, our plan was to take the overnight bus to Guilin, which would have arrived at seven in the morning.    Sitting on the tarmac in Shanghai for four hours meant that we arrived at Hong Kong airport at 4:20 and the train was leaving at 5:30.  That plan scrapped, we opted for plan B--bus to Shenzhen airport and flgiht to Guilin.  We knew there were several flights leaving in the evening.  It took a while to sort our the bus situation.  Turns out, what the guidebooks advertise as "a" bus to Shenzhen is actually a thriving private industry of buses who drive people the hour to the Hong Kong/ China border and drop everyone off to walk across the border into China and then pick you up on the other side and take you the rest of the way to the airport.  We were not the only ones with this plan.  The border crossing was quite bustling and everyone was carting large loads of stuff they had picked up in Hong Kong.  It seemed like quite a lot of effort to get back to where we had been this morning--China.

We arrived at the airport and bought our tickets for the plane and had about an hour and half to grab some food, update the blog and finally take a breather from the dashing around we had been doing.  I also discovered at the airport that we were no longer in Shanghai (in Shanghai and Beijing, in places frequented by tourists, the bathroom was populated by mostly Western toilets and only about one or two "squattters" and in Shenzhen, there was ONE Western toilet reserved for "the weak"--I decided I was weak, but first had to trek back out to our bags to pick up the toilet paper.  This was but an introduction, though, because there were ZERO Western toilets at the Guilin airport and I was grateful for all the sqauts my trainer had me doing in the months before we embarked on our adventure.)

Bathroom needs resolved, we headed outside to find a taxi.  Turns out that the airport shuttle may have still been running, but at after midnight it wasn't entirely clear if it was the shuttle or a tour bus and for the 60 yuan ($8) difference in price we figured it wasn't worth the risk.  The taxi driver took us on a fast and furious half hour drive to the hostel we had picked out only to arrive and find the place dark.  Luckily, he was willing to take us to the next hostel in line.  All the while Reid and I were crossing our fingers that it would be open and that we wouldn't have to check into a regular hotel.  We arrived to find lights and room and are now in a double room for 120 yuan ($17) for the night.  We're hanging out in the lobby now  with the 4 yuan beers we picked up at the convenience store next door decompressing from the excitement of our journey.  

Tomorrow we'll sleep in, perhaps poke around Guilin, and then take a bus to the bus station where we will get on a bus to Yangshuo.  According to Lonely Planet (and others) it will be worth effort.  We are already appreciating being out in rural China and we got a few glimpses of the karst landscape from the taxi, so we are both looking forward to renting bikes and touring around for a few days.

I feel, in a way, that our round the world trip finally started today.  Despite the difficulties getting started in Beijing, it all just seemed a little too easy and there wasn't any element that felt remotely like we were roughing it.  I don't think that we have quite gotten to the point of "roughing it" exactly, but the long travel day, language barrier, and spontaneity of it all felt more like what I was expecting.