Asia Trip: Day 142 - Guilin 桂林=> Dazhai 大寨 (6/4/19)

Daily Highlights:

• Woke up and walked to the Hong Kong Hotel

  • It was half an hour walk, Google Maps got me lost but i recovered

• Three hour bus ride to Dazhai 大寨

  • Our driver was wild but good

  • Last hour was on a one lane mountain road with two ways of traffic

• Walked for thirty minutes up a mountain with my backpack to the hostel

• THE MOST BEAUTIFUL HOSTEL I HAVE STAYED IN ASIA

• Got to my room, showered, and napped

• Woke up to walk around the village and made friends

  • Met people at the pool bar and went to scenic spot #2 for sunset

  • Had a troup of stray dogs (&puppy) follow us the whole way

• Went back to the hostel and got dinner with everybody

  • Met some Europeans and this guy named Louis

    • Louis is a white Frenchman who grew up in Shanghai, had Chinese be his first language, went to Chinese public school for the first eight years of his life, switched to an international school and then French school. Now he goes to college in France.

Asia Trip: Day 143 - Dazhai 大寨 (6/5/19)

Daily Highlights:

• Woke up at 4:10am for sunrise

  • We got lost in the pitch black darkness, took many wrong turns, while trying to find scenic spot #1

  • Ended up making our way over to scenic spot #2

    • Cloudy sunrise but still awesome

• Walked up, over the viewpoint to a road and then back to the starting point

• Came back to the hostel, had coffee and mountain air for brekkie

• Read GaiJin and edited pictures

• Got eggs and tomatoes 番茄炒蛋 while watching the outside world being bathed in rain

• Took a quick little nap

• Went to go get lunch - pork curry with noodles and snickers for dessert

  • Also played pool and won hehe

• Went to wooden house hostel

  • Got to chill with Mr. Han, a young Aussie and Louis

  • Mr. Han kept making fun of the young Aussie, rough housed with the dog and was v accommodating

  • Made us tea 红茶, danta 蛋挞and put on a documentary about China

  • Mr. Han is v funny, but talks so fast 对不对？是不是？

• WENT TO SCENIC SPOT #1

  • There‘s a reason it’s called #1 - it’s B-E-A-U-tiful

• Went to get a beer at the top of the mountain

  • Took too many pictures

  • Started chatting in 中文 with one of the waitresses because we were curious about who owned the rice fields and how the whole thing worked

  • We also started entertaining two little kids (八岁和六岁）

    • 这个孩子很可爱。我觉得我的中文和他们的中文差不多一样的。

  • We ended up getting dinner there and even got some free rice wine

  • To repay kindness, we gave the waitress an hour long English lesson - she loved it and you could tell she was so happy and proud of herself

    • So cool, so rewarding and awesome to stoke the light in other people. These things makes this trip so much more satisfying and enjoyable. She was just so happy it was awesome!

WHAT A DAY!

Asia Trip: Day 144 - Dazhai 大寨 (6/6/19)

Daily Highlights:

• Came down in the AM and had a very lazy morning

  • Had coffee, read and hung out with Ron and the two French girls

• Rained intermittently for the better part of three hours

• We all decided to go on a hike

  • Went to viewpoint #1 again, tried to walk to the Buddha lookout and the top of the mountain

  • Got stuck on an overgrown rice terrace, had to pass by a wild horse and hike up a vertical river

  • We quickly figured out this was a bad idea, turned back, and decided to go the other way - SOAKED IN RAIN

• We all had lunch at a resort overlooking the entire valley

  • AMAZING

  • We took a two and a half hour lunch to try and weather the storm

• We decided to eventually hike back to the hostel - POURING RAIN

  • We all hung our stuff out to dry, took a hot shower and chilled

  • Edited pictures, read, and chatted - made friends with the neighborhood cat

• Decided to have bamboo chicken, bamboo rice, veggies and rice wine for dinner

  • The bamboo chicken took a while to make because the auntie had to find, kill, and cook the chicken.

  • So in the meantime, we all played a weird version of Jenga

  • We got the rice wine and it was 2% alcohol haha

    • So we added beer to strengthen the flavor

  • We got the bamboo chicken and it was delicious

    • I had no idea what I was eating - most likely guts and tendons

    • The chicken legs were at one end, the head at the other end with wings and unidentifiable pieces in between

• I had such a good nights sleep

• I saw a moth the size of a gigantic cockroach

Asia Trip: Day 145 - Dazhai 大寨 => Yangshuo 阳朔 (6/7/19)

Daily Highlights:

• Woke up early to take the AM bus

  • BUT there was a big mudslide, so we couldn’t take the bus down the mountain to the main village. So we had to sprint down this mountain with our packs in half the time it normally takes

  • WE MADE IT!

• Took the two and a half hour bus to Guilin

  • Said goodbye to Ron - I thoroughly enjoyed meeting him, such a cool dude

• Took the hour bus ride to Yangshuo

  • Once we arrived, a strange French girl who stared at me the whole bus ride asked me to get lunch with her because she read in her guidebook *puke* that this place was amazing

  • We arrive, I look at the menu and could tell instantly by the high prices and unappetizing dishes this was a total tourist trap

  • But I was hungry, so I ate my lunch and it was cripplingly awkward - so i scarfed my food and bolted

• I booked my hostel, walked to my new home, checked in, did laundry, listened to music and did abs

• I walked around the downtown area

  • Chatted about politics with some women who I bought fruit from

• Had beers with some people in the common area