Tai gui le

I remember why I didn't get to see or do everything I wanted to in Europe last summer. Traveling is exhausting!

On Thursday afternoon, Trinh, Teresa, and I took the KCR to Shenzhen to catch an overnight bus to Guilin. At customs, the guy stares at my passport picture for a really long time because it doesn't look like me. 1) My hair is wavy. 2) I look like I have jaundice. 3) Apparently, my face is wider in that picture. I eventually clear customs, and at that point, we have 10 minutes or so to get to the bus before it departs. No one speaks English, so we run around looking for this hidden bus station. My roommate was texting me like crazy to hurry up and get to the station. (Our phones can't make/receive calls in China, but we can text.) She finally comes to rescue us, but we discover that the bus was full. We decide to go to the train station, but we find out that the last train departed at 6:00pm. Our last resort was to go to the airport, but I honestly thought we wouldn't get a flight out until the next morning. So we go to the taxi stand, and I ask the only non-Asian there if the airport is far away. He said 50 minutes and suggested sharing a cab with him since his destination was on the way. Evidently, I got us into a potentially shady situation, but I didn't think it was shady. *shrugs* The man was nice.

Miraculously, we arrive at the airport at 9:15pm and bought tickets for 440 yuan ($55 US) on the last flight to Guilin. By the time we clear the security checkpoint, it was 9:40, so we run like mad to the gate to catch our 10:00 flight. Thank goodness for moving walkways! We looked so silly running through the airport with our big backpacks and duffel bag.

So we get to Guilin and faced the task of finding a hostel/hotel. Our cab driver was nice enough to drive us to a couple different hotels. He kept trying to get us to go on his brother's overpriced tour though. I thought we got rid of him, but he stalkerishly called our room in the morning and then greeted us when we came down to the lobby to check out. After much discussion and frustration, we allowed him to drive us to the pier to catch a boat to Yangshuo. There was some sketchy business going on. Our cab driver felt the need to talk to every person we talked to. Trinh asked some guy why we couldn't buy a ticket, and he just told her to sit down. I laughed at the whole situation, but she didn't find it very humorous. In fact, she was pretty upset and making quite a scene.


I was sitting down this entire time since I can't speak Chinese and was pretty much useless.

We finally got on a 10:00am boat with a bunch of old Chinese people who felt the need to take an excessive amount of pictures. We got stuffed into a separate cabin though. I think we were stowaways because as the boat was departing, a man came by and made us close the curtains just until we were away from the pier.

This is where the other people sat.


This is where we sat.

4.5 hours later, we arrived in Yangshuo, where we were greeted by a woman named Lucy. The stupid cab driver sent her to meet us. She was going to take us to a hotel 5 minutes from where we wanted to be, which was West Street. I was so annoyed. These people don't understand the word "no".

The next day was much more peaceful. We rented bikes and rode them down to the river where we got on bamboo rafts.


Then we rode our bikes to Moon Hill, which had amazing views. Too bad an old lady selling water and soda followed us the entire way up. I wanted to kick her. Why won't these people leave us alone?!?


Shopping was fun in Yangshuo. The shop owners were willing to bargain so much more than they are in Hong Kong. My favorite phrase is "Tai gui le." It's one of the few things I can say in Chinese. I picked up a few souvenirs for people. By December, I'm going to have to buy an extra suitcase to transport all this junk back. It truly is junk.

This past weekend was quite an adventure. I think we would have been screwed if Trinh and Teresa didn't know a little bit of Mandarin. Traveling wears me out...and I have to do it again this weekend.