Guilin to Yangshuo, the Li River Cruise

Today we took a river cruise down the Li River from Guilin to Yangshuo. The scenery features on the 20 RMB banknote, in movies, and tourism brochures worldwide. It's one of the top 5 things-to-see in China according to my 2.5kg guidebook... and I must admit, it's pretty spectacular. It really IS as pretty as in the pictures, which is good because words cannot truly describe the splendour!

There were about 10 boats and they all took off in a line, although only a few boats carried foreigners. As we floated past craggy cliffs, rolling green hills, water-buffalo, cormorants, fishermen on bamboo rafts and kids playing in the water - I proceeded to get a pretty good sunburn! But it was well worth it - I stayed on the top deck to watch the amazing scenery and have about 200 pictures to show for it (see my facebook albums if you think you're up to the challenge!)

We had a buffet lunch, which was served on board and was cooked in a kitchen located on the lowest deck at the back of the boat. I avoided the mystery meat, but accepted the challenge to eat a local delicacy... fried whole tiny fish... although I didn't eat the head! Instead, I took a picture as proof (AND in case I started feeling queasy later and the doctors had to know what caused it!)




And as a finale, some more of my favourite shots! there are so many...

City Trip to Guilin & Yangshuo - be careful what you wish for...

Looking for a city trip with a difference? Got a day or 2 to spare? Why not "hop" over to Guilin for a weekend break... :P It's amazing how you can take one short flight here and be in the middle of another province, which might as well be yet another country, with scenery right out of a movie. One minute you're in the heart of highrises and traffic, the next you're in rolling countryside. EVERY city is huge and impressive here, and Guilin was no exception!

The Lindsays know how to travel in style - so they'd arranged to be met at the airport by our English-speaking guide (Sandy - a man!) and personal driver/minivan transportation who took us to the Bravo Hotel to check in. When I entered the room I was to share with Wara - we found that someone was still in it! So I huffed and I puffed and I nearly blew the reception desk down... getting us an upgrade to a clean room (important) with a nice Lake View (not important, but cool nonetheless!!!).

The first point of interest in Guilin was the Reed Flute Cave. Having been in Limestone caves before (Waitomo, NZ) I was prepared to see lots of dripping rocks and maybe a tourist or two. What I wasn't prepared for was fluorescent lighting, guides with megaphones, and about 1 trillion Chinese people (school's out for summer!). Nothing like a giant crush of fast-talking Chinese people to really make an endless maze of caves seem slightly claustrophobic! The small (man made) lake with the authentic back-lighting in Bright-Blue-Floodlights did make for a nice picture though...

The next stops were all sales stops. Giving us the "opportunity" to acquire high-end "exclusive" products at a very "low price". Riiiiight. First we stopped at a pearl farm - though the farm was nowhere to be seen. We were treated to a fashion show with models sashaying down the catwalk in ill-fitting dresses and showcasing enormous pearl necklaces, rings, bracelets... you get the picture. Next was the silk-making factory where they use silk pods to make duvets. Looks easy, but definitely is not. We tried to stretch one pod to cover the duvet table... only to find that none of us had enough oomph to complete the job! We spent a good 3 hours in the showroom watching Mrs Lindsay painstakingly select just the right design... only for me to talk her out of it! Sorry!

Wish I'd talked us all out of dinner though. Look, I know I'm in China and thus I am going to have to adapt. Crispy Seaweed and Sesame Prawn Toast are not Chinese and are just a myth created by the English to make it all seem quite tame. I truly like the real Chinese food - as long as it doesn't involve chewing on claws/feet of any kind and spitting out knuckles/bones. BUT I really don't like mystery meat - I like to know what I'm eating and what animal it came from. Well, in a true case of be-careful-what-you-wish-for, there really was no mistaking the origin of the "chicken" dish we ordered at the hotel restaurant. Cold, boiled chicken (head included) with its congealed fatty skin-layer attached with super-glue... dee-lish! The chook's tongue hanging out the side of its beak really added a touch of je-ne-sais-quoi. This might just be the best diet ever.

Getting High in Hong Kong ! The Marisa Way...

I lurrrrrve skyscrapers, especially shiny, odd-shaped ones. Ergo, I lurrrrve Hong Kong (if not its pushy, rude, obnoxious residents... hmmm). Thanks to my brother's leaving present - 101 Things to Do Before You Die - part of my mission on my travels is to visit the World's tallest buildings. I've went to the observation decks in the World Trade Center in New York, Sears Tower in Chicago, Taipei 101 in Taiwan... and I guess now I need to get to the Burj El Arab or somesuch in Dubai. Even when they're not in the top 10, I like to get high in every city I go to :) Luckily for me, Hong Kong boasts some of the tallest cloud itchers around. Unluckily for me, you can't get to the top.


I went to the observation deck of the Bank of China building (pictured left below), but it was only halfway up on the 43rd floor. I still had an awesome view of the Hong Kong Island skyline looking out towards Kowloon and Tsim Sha Tsui - and a perfect view of one of the World's top 10 tallest : 2IFC (center & right).

I tried to get into 2IFC, but the closest to the top that I could get was the 50th floor where there is an exhibition of sorts about the history of money in Hong Kong. I went through the whole rigmarole of producing my passport, filling out forms, getting a security tag, being escorted to the elevator... making it to the 50th floor to see...view away from the harbour toward the BACK!!! shame. at least I can say I've been IN the building and I can cross it off my list!

One of my favourite sights in Hong Kong is definitely the duo of odd-shaped Lippo Towers (left). I also took the trip up the midtown escalator that scales the hills in central - escalator after escalator taking you past the rabbit-warren of streets and markets.






Yup, I love Hong Kong - its buildings, its different areas, its malls and even SOME of its hotels... It's the PEOPLE I can't stand! Rude, pushy, shoving and sometimes just plain offensive. I've perfected the one-armed shove (helps to be taller and wider than the average shovee), I've become an expect at ignoring the constant barrage of "Missy you want to buy handbag/watch/rolex/massage/camera/DVD, Missy you need tailor?" and NO ONE gets the better of me on the tram anymore...with one foot on the step, my hand on the rail, a woman tried to climb onto me and push herself ahead of me into the tram. She was politely if forcibly shoved aside. Missy is now smart, Missy won't be fooled by "looks like a nice old lady" anymore. No indeed, it's a warzone out there and everyone's a potential enemy...

You have been warned.

Big Buddha On A Hill

Today I braved wet and windy weather (Hong Kong style, chucking it down with a helpful gale-force wind blowing the rain sideways...) to go visit the Big Buddha on Lantau Island. the GLAMOUR that is globetrotting. I hope you're all jealous of my sopping shoes and soggy Afro hair! In case anyone's wondering, it wasn't raining when I left the hotel... I'm NOT a glutton for punishment!

Apparently the bad weather kept all sane people away, so I had a private transfer from the end of the MTR Subway up to Po Lin Monastery. One hour on windy, wet and windy roads with just the driver, a 60 seater bus, and moi! All the buses coming back the other way were packed to bursting, people scared away by a little water... Hah!

The setting is amazing - on the top of a hill on Lantau Island. Along the way we passed small villages, beautiful beaches (would've been if not for the weather), and a huge...prison. Oh well. There are 251 steps leading up to the main plateau that the Buddha sits on. I counted them, but I think I may have passed out at some point and not counted the ones I crawled up. Certainly seemed more like 1000! Hey, at least I didn't have to take my travel bag up there... now at 29kg and counting!

I closed off a memorable day by drying off in the cinema watching Die Hard 4.0. Just biding my time until Transformers comes out and I can watch it in Chinese!

Happy Valley, an evening of races and lost moolah!

Happy Valley, sounds innocent and quaint - kind of like Adventure Land in Disney-speak. And just like in Disney, everything looks magical when lit just so...


James and his fiancee Nim rescued me from the slum, hooked me up with a new "crib" on Hong Kong Island (away from the commoners on the mainland, hmph) and then kindly joined me for an evening of debauchery. Hang on, this is still me, so not so much debauchery as another attempt at a "First". We started off nice and slow, having a snack and drink in the infamous Lan Kwai Fong. That's not my beer, sorry!

Then we moved onto the races at Happy Valley race track on Hong Kong Island - LOTS of fun! Unfortunately, season at make sure you go. All the expats stand around drinking and "seeing and being seen"... its great to sit back and just watch them network!

As we were stuck in traffic for some time, I had asked the taxidriver if he had any tips. He gave us horse #8 in race #3 (both deemed to be lucky / prosperous numbers in China). We all ended up betting on the horse and it WON! Unfortunately, that was also the only time I won anything. Having been persuaded to bet on every race, I proceeded to lose a bundle (10 quid total). Perhaps my strategy of picking horses by number and/or by name rather than the stats had something to do with that! All my bets seemed promising but petered out in the end. Horse #7 in race #7 - aka Bulldozer - guess that should have given me a clue - was first all the way round the track until the last 25 metres. He just "peaked" too early! Similarly, Big Kahuna, Superdana, etc all seemed hopeful at first (= me screaming by the sideline) but then lost in the end. Alas, I did not win big, but neither did I lose my shirt! With 15 HK$ to the pound, I'm not complaining! Definitely my first trip to the races, and even more definitely not my last. I'm hooked... mama needs a new pair of shoes...

Hong Kong Slumming....

I arrived in Hong Kong without a hitch, took the free transit bus from the MTR to the Holiday Inn and then went to find my hostel... The porter at the Holiday Inn had to point it out to me 3 times... on paper "New Garden Hostel, Mirador Mansions" sounds romantic, exotic, comfortable... the pictures on the website and the comments from previous guests all showed a modern, clean, comfortable place to rest my head... oh how NAIEVE!


The hostel actually looked more like a high- rise SLUM in the middle of Hong Kong. With trepidation, I entered and confronted the rabbitwarren within to try to find my way to the elevator. I was accosted 5 times before I even got into the elevator - men asking me if I was looking for a guest house, one even tried to block my way so I elbowed him and dragged my 29kg bag over his foot... Once I got to the reception on the 13th floor (a window in a wall) I realised it wasn't a great stretch to think that they have a separate hourly rate as well as the nightly fee...


They didn't have the room I booked (explanation: we're fixing the aircon, you move tomorrow morning), so they put me in a "twin room", which they explained was much larger and more luxurious than the one I had actually booked... so the new-and-relaxed-Marisa gave them the benefit of the doubt and followed down to the 10th floor to the "Kowloon Hotel"...







I just LAUGHED AND LAUGHED AND LAUGHED when I first entered the room. It's a coffin - no window, 2 bunks, dodgy bedding, a shower CLOSET with the showerhead halfway suspended over the toilet seat... Hey, why waste time if you accomplish 2 for the energy of 1?! The doorknob to the outside door was kept in place with SELLOTAPE,so the chain quickly became my favourite thing in the coffin.




I ventured outside just long enough to get a drink and something to eat, when I saw the sign "elevator hours: 6am - 10pm". As I was on the 10th floor, the prospect of trying to find the stairs, navigating 10 flights, and trying to avoid the many dodgy men in partial darkness just didn't appeal. So I went to bed really early... 8pm early :P Although I was kept entertained during the night as the walls were clearly not much more than paper and sellotape either!



They were supposed to move me the next morning to the single room with window that I booked according to the website. So I got up early (had a 11:30 lunch appointment) and asked to be moved. They didn't have my room (people not checked out yet -- ehm, yesterday you said you're fixing the aircon?) so they told me to bring my luggage and leave it in the hallway and they would move it later. Yeah, funny, I don't think so. I told them they could either move me in the next 30 minutes or I was leaving with my key and keeping my stuff chained to the bed in my current room.

Lo and behold, they suddenly had a room available and told me to get my luggage... Having been born 30 years ago - not yesterday - and dealt with many a dodgy vendor, I asked to see it first. I am grateful for my scepticism! The new room was another twin, but half the size if that. The bed were maybe 50cm wide and 1.30 long, if you could have moved them together they would not one single bed make! I could've slept sideways in the foetal position - or stretched out and hung my feet out the door. The "bathroom" was more like a cupboard (even worse than the one I had) with the shower LITERALLY over the toilet and seemingly running from the same tank. So I declined graciously (thanks, but no thanks) and once more resumed the argument: give me my room or give me my money. As there were at least 8 other people waiting, watching and in some cases having the same issue, I guess they decided to get rid of the loudest protestor (me!) and told me to stay in the room I had to be moved the next day....

Of course, I went back to the room, removed all my valuables to take with me and chained my luggage with 2 steel cables and 4 locks (thank you 29kg bag!!!) to the desk. Ain't no one moving nothin' !

I left to meet James for lunch, taking 3 bags with all my valuables with me! James came to the rescue and had a travel agent look for a respectable but affordable hotel for me and I moved the same day. Needless to say, getting my money back involved 2 more visits, threatening, calls to my creditcard company and a whole lot of agro. At one point I just came at check-out time and blocked the desk for everyone coming and going with lots of shouting of words like fraud, illegal, want money back, call police, speak to my lawyer, not leaving until you do what I agreed yesterday... she tried EVERYTHING, and supplied lie after lie after lie, contradicting herself from one second to the next. I finally left with a supposed fax from the bank saying it's cancelled.... I'll keep a watch on my CC statement like a HAWK! I have a feeling this isn't over...

My new hotel is much nicer - it has a separate shower stall NEXT to the toilet :P Broadband access, mini fridge, and even roomservice (though ordering the steak got me a porkchop... hmmm) :)