Yangshuo

We chose Guilin and Yangshuo in the south as our first trip to see "real" China. It is famous for its limestone karst scenery of hillocks and rivers.
We had a bit of a dodgy start as we missed the flight from Beijing on the way out and had to pay through the nose and take 2 different flights to get back to where we wanted. After arriving in Guilin we took the Chinese ride of death for 1.5 hours down to Yangshuo. Seriously, the driving was crazy. At one point, on a single lane highway, we were simultaneously overtaken and undertaken by two buses. Carl's motto for the safest way to drive in those conditions was "spend the least amount of time possible on the road". That also seemed to be the motto of our driver. Anyway, we made it to our hostel in time for dinner (rather than the 11am it should have been if we'd caught the original flight!). Grrrrr.
The place was very cute, rustic but not too basic. It was right on the river and we could dine outside (the weather was great) by the water and watch the world go by, literally. A popular activity is to go down the river on a bamboo raft piloted by your very own Chinese goldolier. Hundreds of these rafts must have gone past our hostel every day. And our hostel was the only place on the river, all the tourists wanted to shout hello and wave. Tiring after the first 50 boats!
Anyway we thought that we should try it out and got our own rafts. These are basically two wooden chairs strapped to 10 bamboo poles, stable but not too stable. Olivia was quite happy as Carl dunked her over the side while we drank beer. Very civilised. Scenery was beautiful.