Huanglong -Yangtze River - Yangshuo

It has been hectic these past couple of days and it made me think about what we've been posting. A lot of the responses/comments that we have received have been to the tune of "It looks so beautiful!" or "I'm so jealous of you guys." While we have had SOME wonderful times these past three months, please let me assure you that we have had our share of bumps and bruises along the way. Just yesterday, we got out of a taxi and I conveniently left my money belt in the back seat. Luckily I had my wallet with cash in hand, but the belt held $200 in traveler's checks and more importantly, my passport. Without going into too much detail, we spent the next four hours at the mercy of the taxi stand attendants (from the train station that we just left) who were super helpful and called all of the taxis (or so it seemed) in Wuhan to track it down - THANK GOODNESS! However, the $200 in checks did not make it back - go figure. It took an hour walking around town to find a phone where we could call American Express and it cost us $20 to make that call - ARRRGH!).

This was all after a 4 hour bus ride that left at 6AM from Yichang - after a 3 hour sleep - after a tour the night prior that started at 10PM and ended at 1AM. Who signs up for a tour that starts at 10PM you ask? Try the stupid ass Americans that were talked into it 3 days prior by a slick Chinese travel agent who assured us that we did not want to be on board our "cruise" ship

as it went through the locks. The cruise in and of itself was pretty disappointing and we paid an arm and a leg by China standards. We did have some nice views


but again, we found that we were had by the travel agents that booked our tickets as we talked to other back packers who had paid much less than we did. The saying for us thus far is "You live and you "DON'T" learn."

After that, Erin lost her appetite as we witnessed a rat being swept out of a restaurant and meet his end after the sweeper smashed it with the heel of his shoe. Then we walked the other way and saw a worker grab a live catfish from a tank and then slam it to the ground (this is all in the middle of a busy walkway in front of the train station BTW) before putting it in his fryer. We were short on sleep, had just gone through some stress with the whole passport thing, had not eaten a proper meal in over 14 hours and now had a 14 hour overnight train ahead of us.

We've run in to some straight up rude people (i.e. food vendors not willing to serve us - This has REALLY happened - or business owners acting as if we were bothering them when coming into their business). The different culture (i.e. spitting/hacking up of phlem by almost everyone/everywhere - smoking in close quarters (I'm sure I'm going to die of second hand smoke) - run down hostels/ hotels (we average about $15 per night and that's about what it gets you) - dirty Eastern style (hole in the floor) toilets. All of this together has straight up worn us down! Again, we have had some nice memories and have met some very nice people along the way ( this has helped keep a smile on our face as we exchange war stories - THANKS for your company),

but overall - We're ready for Vietnam. We have until the 15th of Novemeber and are currently in Yangshuo which is a nice town "dotted with karst topography" - limestone peaks/upthrusts.

We'll spend a couple of days unwiding here (we're back to shorts weather) before heading to Nanning to obtain our Vietnam Visas. That's it for my bitch session.
FMP

Pictures from Huanglong National Park a couple of days back- Known for it's crystal clear blue lakes.

Me and Erin switching places with a local porter (These guys carry people to the various viewing places if they have problems with the altitude (4000 meters) or if they're just too damn lazy).