I am sitting on our king sized bed typing this up, looking out the window of the Yangshuo River Retrat to the nearby mountains (I wouldn't be able to see them through the mist if they were further away.)
We only just arrived here in Yangshou, in amongst the karst mountains. It is similar to Halong Bay in Vietnam, but on dry land. It is warm and steamy, and I imagine it is hot in summer, but very pleasant here now.
It is a very relaxed place - the only noises I can hear are the crickets and Sue having a shower on the verandah!
We disembarked from the Yangtze cruise this morning, saying goodbye to most of our new-found friends. (Not to all of them though, because Jan from England flew with us on a bumpy ride to Guilin.) We then had a one hour drive to Yangshuo, and then out to this riverside retreat. There were many rice paddies as we drove down here, and we also passed a few duck farms. We are having lemon duck tonight for dinner to help reduce the duck population and thereby reduce the risk of HxNx.
Jumping back to this morning in Chongqing, we visited a 300 year old immigrants meeting place. In this case, the immigrants were from southern China. It was a beautiful old wooden building, built without nails, and a cheerful guide with excellent english showed us around. Greater Chongqing is a city on a junction in the Yangtze River, set among the mountains, with a population larger than Australia. Apparently the river here can rise 25m in one day with the large catchment area nearby. Chongqing was apparently the capital of China during the second world war due to its safe inland location.
We are here at the riverside retreat for the next four nights, and we are already starting to relax, though there is a lot to go and see. Tonight we are off to a world famous light show, just in case it rains tomorrow (It hasn't rained significantly in any part of our travels so far, for which we are very grateful.)
Only a week left of our holiday - it has all gone so fast!
