Jo and Hayley's SEA journal From Vietnam to Bali, our most extensive South East Asia trip yet!

Well New Year's Eve in Shanghai was different, a dearth of pubs did'nt help. We brought some little bottles of Vodka and laced our fruit juice with it, and headed to the Bund area near our hotel. This has a long walk along the river with the spectacular Shanghai nightline of buildings and lights. We found one drinking establishment and met some American teachers, was nice to talk and get merry. Headed back to the riverside for the countdown, along with a couple of million chinese. I was hoping for fireworks, but alas there were none due to a tradgedy in a previous year. There were balloons and streamers releases from tall builings instead so was still good to look at. Just before the countdown, over the loud speaker came the anouncement to maintain public order..... so there wasn't a lot of cheering going on.... Headed of to Guilin on the 2nd, arrived about 7pm to the city and checked into a particularly grotty establishment. Looking at the wiring and the general ambiance...stained bed heads, hair on pillows, uninviting bathing facilities, we began our escape plan. We left our packs locked, slept in our clothes and decided to head to Yangshuo asap. We took a 4 and a half hour cruise up the Li Jiang river which was spectacular, Karst formation everywhere, very beautiful scenery despite the chilly temp, and rain. Had a good lunch on board and sat with some Aussies, from Newcastle ha ha! The river was only about 50cms deep, making the lifejacket drill a bit pointless, and we regularly ground along the bottom. Arrived in Yangshuo in the afternoon, walked about a kilometre with our 20kg backpacks in the rain, then got a taxi to our hotel. Our hotel is cool! It is beautiful here, but the temperature today is 4-7 degrees and rainy. We wondered around town this morning getting supplies and are currently camped out at the hotel, because it is FREEZING. There is no english channels on the telly, but upstairs is a dvd player with wall projector, so armed with doona's and dvd's from Vietnam we are pretty happy. Hopefully the rain will stop, though we are planning to stay here for a week or more. The roof near the lounge area is open, so we are pretty rugged up. Last night the hotel staff, a couple of sweet girls brought us up these really nifty hot water bottles, soft material pouches that are like a kettle, you plug them in and heat them up.We promptly went and brought 2 today, awesome investment for $4 each. I'm clutching mine now, as my nose runs. Anyway, heading back to our movies and the doona, and to re-heat my hottie! Sorry about the lack of stories, internet has been surprisingly difficult till arriving here. Our laundry is free here too! Bonus! Love to all!!! xxxxxxxx