Hangzhou was kind of a ritzy, little city and according to CCTV 9 (China's English channel) the most beautiful city in China (Check it out!). Nevertheless, I was ready to leave the city for a more rural area and hike Huang Shan (Yellow Mt.), but the Anhui province had other plans for us. En route to the bus station, we found out that there was incredible amounts of snow and the roads were dangerous.
So we had to alter our plans and we decided to take our 18-hour overnight bus ride a few days early to Guilin. I think we were all not really looking forward to this trip, but at least we would have a sleeper bus which would make it a little bit more bearable.
The bus was late, by about 2 hours, we should have taken this to be an ominous sign. As we boarded, we were shocked to see that it was a normal coach bus with NO sleeper beds. D'oh! We were not happy campers. As we sat upright, in much traffic, the originally 18 hour bus ride turned into a 33 hour bus ride! We left at 5pm and did not arrive into Guilin until 2AM, a day and half later. To top if off, everyone and their mom was chain-smoking on the bus. We tried to ope So we smelled like an American Bar from the 90s.
While we probably smoke a few packs on the bus, the trip to Yangshuo (an hour and a 1/2 south of Guilin) was worth it. Yangshuo is a beautiful, almost surreal, place. When I saw the strange hills that randomly sprouted out of the ground, I immediately thought that this could be a scene out of a Dr. Seuss book, like "The Lorax."
If you go to southern China, this is a place definitely not to miss, just try not to take an overnight bus ride there. Seussian hills a click away
Group photo during our bike trip out into the hills
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