The Fellowship breaks, but the journey continues towards Guilin and Yangshou
It was 6:35 AM and we heard a knock on the door—it was Reyna. Yikes! Our alarm clock did not wake us up, so Arlene and I had to quickly get our backpacks and bags read. Our taxi was meeting us in 10 minutes. It was our last day and final day in Yunnan and we had a full schedule of traveling today.
The final four was going to become the final three. Nancy plans would take her to Taiwan before returning to the states. The rest of us would stay together until the 12th or 13th of June. Then, my next stop would be the Philippines.
But that was still a couple of days away, and today, we had to catch our morning flight from Lijiang to Kunming and then take a bus from Kunming to Guilin. The plan was not to stay in Guilin but to take another bus to nearby Yangshou. Only an hour away from Guilin, Yangshou is backpacker friendly and has a lot of shopping and hiking opportunities. I realized that we were doing a lot of transportation transferring today!
At the airport, Reyna, Arlene and I played some a Filipino card game called “Posoy Dos” before boarding our flight. Once it was time to board, we couldn’t take off. A fight started to brew a couple of seats from us. Apparently, the flight had overbooked their seats and a Chinese couple had become very angry with the airline stewardess. People joined in on the ruckus (mind you, it’s all in Chinese), with some people blaming the airline and others motioning for the Chinese couple to get off. The head stewardess started approaching people, asking them if they would give up their seats, but more people grew angry because of the delay in flight. Finally, after 20 minutes, three fashionably young Chinese women got fed up and took their Burberry decorated bags from the overhead compartment. It appeared that they decided they would take the compensation for giving up their seat. Or perhaps they were fed up with the whole debacle. Suddenly, the whole plane filled with clapping in admiration for their actions, and before we knew it, we were up in the air. Again, this whole scene was in Chinese, but it was the conclusion that we three Asian-Americans ended up with as we witnessed the whole thing. We even understood some of the Chinese words used! (Side note: After being in the country for two weeks, you do pick up Chinese because you are forced to speak it in areas that do not speak English. It definitely builds confidence and challenges you to be involved in your traveling).
There is a definitely change of scenery you get as you head towards south Asia. From the plane, we made two bus transfers. As we rode and transferred to our bus towards Yangshou, I realized that there was a lot of beauty in the green lands that contrast an overcast rainy sky. You also see the most interesting type of mountains—they look like giant mole hills covered with forests and rocks. However, you cannot ignore the humidity. It is everywhere. It also begins to look less like the rural and open spaces of Yunnan. Instead, there are noisy buses, and you can definitely see the mixture of both the poor and working class. You can also see different types of faces, which have a more of a south-east Asian mix. There are streets lined with every day shops and restaurants, as mass transportation combines with every day life.
In the humidity, we finally arrived in Yangshou, after a full day of traveling with heavy backpacks. As soon as we fought our way through a crowd of Chinese that wanted to advertise housing (we were obvious with our large backpacks), we were immediately approached by a Hostel owner on a motorcycle. He was advertising his hostel. However, we already had one in mind, which would place us in the middle of Xi Jie street and in the middle of shops, restaurants, bars, and internet cafes (yes!). But where was it? Looking around an intersection, we spotted two white tourists and asked for directions. In no time, we found ourselves at our hostel, in the lively street of Xi Jie. There were a ton of cute shops (I know I mention this a lot) and restaurants—many of them advertising “western food” to cater to tourists. But it didn’t have the negative feeling of tourism-instead it just felt, very “alive” and bustling.
Another bonus was that many of the restaurants hosted World Cup viewing nights with drink specials. I remember as we were walking around the main street, we looked around and then at each other: it was time to have some more fun!
But not until tomorrow since we were tired. Tomorrow, we make the most of our day and a half in the streets of Yangshou.
The final four was going to become the final three. Nancy plans would take her to Taiwan before returning to the states. The rest of us would stay together until the 12th or 13th of June. Then, my next stop would be the Philippines.
But that was still a couple of days away, and today, we had to catch our morning flight from Lijiang to Kunming and then take a bus from Kunming to Guilin. The plan was not to stay in Guilin but to take another bus to nearby Yangshou. Only an hour away from Guilin, Yangshou is backpacker friendly and has a lot of shopping and hiking opportunities. I realized that we were doing a lot of transportation transferring today!
At the airport, Reyna, Arlene and I played some a Filipino card game called “Posoy Dos” before boarding our flight. Once it was time to board, we couldn’t take off. A fight started to brew a couple of seats from us. Apparently, the flight had overbooked their seats and a Chinese couple had become very angry with the airline stewardess. People joined in on the ruckus (mind you, it’s all in Chinese), with some people blaming the airline and others motioning for the Chinese couple to get off. The head stewardess started approaching people, asking them if they would give up their seats, but more people grew angry because of the delay in flight. Finally, after 20 minutes, three fashionably young Chinese women got fed up and took their Burberry decorated bags from the overhead compartment. It appeared that they decided they would take the compensation for giving up their seat. Or perhaps they were fed up with the whole debacle. Suddenly, the whole plane filled with clapping in admiration for their actions, and before we knew it, we were up in the air. Again, this whole scene was in Chinese, but it was the conclusion that we three Asian-Americans ended up with as we witnessed the whole thing. We even understood some of the Chinese words used! (Side note: After being in the country for two weeks, you do pick up Chinese because you are forced to speak it in areas that do not speak English. It definitely builds confidence and challenges you to be involved in your traveling).
There is a definitely change of scenery you get as you head towards south Asia. From the plane, we made two bus transfers. As we rode and transferred to our bus towards Yangshou, I realized that there was a lot of beauty in the green lands that contrast an overcast rainy sky. You also see the most interesting type of mountains—they look like giant mole hills covered with forests and rocks. However, you cannot ignore the humidity. It is everywhere. It also begins to look less like the rural and open spaces of Yunnan. Instead, there are noisy buses, and you can definitely see the mixture of both the poor and working class. You can also see different types of faces, which have a more of a south-east Asian mix. There are streets lined with every day shops and restaurants, as mass transportation combines with every day life.
In the humidity, we finally arrived in Yangshou, after a full day of traveling with heavy backpacks. As soon as we fought our way through a crowd of Chinese that wanted to advertise housing (we were obvious with our large backpacks), we were immediately approached by a Hostel owner on a motorcycle. He was advertising his hostel. However, we already had one in mind, which would place us in the middle of Xi Jie street and in the middle of shops, restaurants, bars, and internet cafes (yes!). But where was it? Looking around an intersection, we spotted two white tourists and asked for directions. In no time, we found ourselves at our hostel, in the lively street of Xi Jie. There were a ton of cute shops (I know I mention this a lot) and restaurants—many of them advertising “western food” to cater to tourists. But it didn’t have the negative feeling of tourism-instead it just felt, very “alive” and bustling.
Another bonus was that many of the restaurants hosted World Cup viewing nights with drink specials. I remember as we were walking around the main street, we looked around and then at each other: it was time to have some more fun!
But not until tomorrow since we were tired. Tomorrow, we make the most of our day and a half in the streets of Yangshou.
posted by RENEWED at
11:31 PM
