Here we are, almost 20 days later. ‘we won’t have access to internet frequently’, appeared to be party true, but the at the other parts of time we had access to internet but the places we visited, we visited only so shortly that there wasn’t any opportunity to update you. We’re sorry, but here we are again.
20 days later, our itinerary through Guangxi province later, three major destinations (Yangshuo, Hong Kong, Shanghai) later, countless busses later and two night trains later and ever so many stories and even more pictures later.


Right now we’re counting down our time in China, tomorrow morning we’ll take the ferry to Osaka, Japan. It feels strange to go and leave this country we’ve now spend two months in. We first noticed this feeling, a sort of feeling of attachment almost, when we crossed the border with Hong Kong. But there it were the notion of a train ticket back into the country in our pocket and the double entry-visa in our passports that prevented us from missing it or starring to feel kind of home-sick. It was a sort of try-out, tomorrow we’ll leave for real, not knowing when we will come back to this wonderful, yet strange country that seems to have everything from nature to high-tech solutions. The only things we know for sure is that we will come back some time, and that it won’t be the same anymore then is we experienced it now. This so fast developing country will change for sure, this change being even sped up more by the Olympics next summer. And as we heard many people saying: once US dollars got to a country, this country will never be the same afterwards…After this praise of China, there is of course also space for the things we won’t miss for sure: the never-clear bus lines, the constant smoking literally everywhere around you (and which absence we grateful welcomed in Hong Kong), the spitting on literally all floors (ranging from busses to chique restaurants) and all people saying ‘meijo’ (I don’t have) when you ask for something they don’t understand or pointing in some random direction if you ask for a route and they actually don’t know where the bus station is.

Oef, nostalgia rules, even concerning times that haven’t even passed yet. Because here I (Aniek) am, alive and kicking blogging in metropolis Shanghai, enjoying the marvellous hospitality of Verena’s sister Rebekka, at whose house we stay for these four days and being remembered again how nice it is to drink real dansk ?l (yes, Carlsberg is widely available here) in stead of the rice beer that is available in the rest of the country.
However, time is ticking and the boat leaves (too) early tomorrow morning, so we won’t be able to tell you all details of our last few weeks..we apologize….
In short, our Kaili-Yangshuo trip was a great trip and we were very pleased with this last minute change of plans. However the trip appeared to be much harder than our Qinghai trip. This was either because we are not as fresh as during our Qinghai trip anymore, or because these bus trips on average involved three busses in stead of one and took most times 7 to 8 hours. Not yet included the time we spend looking for second bus stations….unravelling village names…and being dropped off by a taxi driver at the end of a village, hoping that we understood correctly that at some point our aimed bus would pass by….The landscape was once again beautiful, the road bumpy and edgy (that bumpy and edgy that in this case also my Reisekaugummi didn’t do their job anymore :’(). The villages were pittoresque, all being built by other minorities with different habits. We watched silver dancing in Xijiang, saw local entertainment and rice-fields-in-the-backyard in Zhaoxing, finishing the travel watching sunrise over the Jinkeng rice terraces, the morning after we finally had a proper hot rice wine evening 
That was how we got to Yangshuo, indeed another Dali, but not without reason because the lime stone environment is very special, best to be explored by bike, so we could once again give in to our Dutch cravings….The night train then got us to Hong Kong, passing the border for the first time in almost two months! It was not only a canal with barb wire, it was the border with east and west, between communism and commercialism, between non-english speakers and native English speakers, between censored media and open media, between poor and rich, between dirty and clean….but still we could find some China here, as well as there was wide nature next to skyscrapers: Hong Kong has everything! The change then from Hong Kong to Shanghai wasn’t that large…it was only that our banana’s were confiscated by the Chinese customs that made clear to us that we had crossed the border once again. (and our lakc of sleep due to brilliant restaurant wagon evening with two Canadians (thanks Marty and Eric!) AND the Chinese crew….
Shanghai is huge and booming, and the Chinese city that is least Chinese that we’ve visited. Luckily we managed today on our very last day in China, to find a little quarter, that had been saved from the commerce….surrounded by skyscrapers it was a little oasis with street vendors yelling….bikes crossing from all directions….red paper lamps dancing in the wind… signs we couldn’t read and TL barred restaurants....that’s the china we say good bye to now: Zajian!