Fairytail Boats, cats tails and stuck records.

Tuesday 21st November

A 6.30 wake up call is quite a frighening thing when in mid sleep, that was all in the name of acruise down the Li River with our guide. We are currently in a posh hotel with breakfast, stocked up on fruit and cereal and pinched a couple of bananas and bready things for mid morning snacks – well you pay for these things so why not. Our “guide” didn’t seem to have an off button else it was broken for she would not shut up and told us 1001 times we were going on a boat. After about 5 minutes I learned to switch off myself and enjoy the scenary. Our boat trip was lovely though reminicient of New Zealands’ Milford Sound for the vast amounts of tourists and boats setting off downstream, a little too touristy but well worth it as there is no other way of seeing this area. Green tea welcomed us on board – I bet you didn’t know that green tea could talk and welcome english people did you? Well it can, just as records (anhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/purplespace/308231424/d tour guides) can become stuck and repeat themselves over and over and over again. The scenary was stunning – the mountains rising above like a bed of needles I’ve never seen anything so different. Magically the low cloud hung onto the mountains making it look like we were sailing through a fairytail. Lunch on board did consist of dead things like turtle, snake probably dog and cat (we saw a cat the previous night being dragged by its owner so that must have been today’s lunch) – so sticking to rice and vegetables is always a safer option. The tofu was quite nice though. Off the cruise trip….Umberella, you want to buy umbrella, despite having a decent waterproof over me ok it was raining but no i did not want a bloody umbrellla neither did I want a plastic flower despite how “beautiful” it was, and the guide was still doing her impression of a stuck record, a very very good one it was too. You buy scarf, you buy t shirt, you buy postcard, no no no…me buy mechanism to shut up guide thats what me buys. But even here in China they don’t seem to sell that, (though they sell everything else dammit) Stuck record guide then drove us around to a perl place – i don’t do perls but of course was polite and nodded in a “yes I look interested” sort of bored way, “you sell tea” i should have said, “I need tea” a good cuppa at that, just nice tea, tea tea, I am now thinking of tea. But alas no we were off again to some elephant place – now the chineese seem to think that an archway in the cliffs looks like an elephant dipping its nose into water, whereas everyone else calls it a cove or something similar, so they had made this area to view this elephant which was actually a cove, confused, yeah so was I especially as it was bucketing it down with rain, “You want to eat dead snake’s eyes, tortose brains on a stick, or snakes feet on a stick – just a minute snakes feet?? Now I am confused and wet and want that cup of tea. Guide had a friend who sold DVD’s so we did the DVD experience which I found interesting, they have all the proper DVD’s in the shop itself then cardboard boxes all the illegal ones, for the equilivant of less than 50p. So officially a bargain or what? That’s naughty very naughty, bad evil naughty, bad. Finally at around 4pm I get my cup of tea, back at the hotel room and try the luxury strawberry tim tams that my friend had bought me from oz now a girl sometimes needs her comforts and for me a cup of standard english breakfast tea with milk is one of them. Now I am happy. Keeping on the same theme we went into the more western cafe for some tea, before heading off to the theatre to see a performance of dance – performing local traditions. It was really interesting given that I am not really into Theatre. Really colourful, educational and very very clever in parts. A good ending to a day of failing to switch off the tour guide. I have been informed that tomorrow we are going to see a cave, I have been informed that tomorrow we are going to see a cave…. guess what? We are goin to see a cave tomorrow…. Over and out…