After what seems like weeks of endless packing, goodbyes and a fairly unpleasant week of one of our more strained periods of time as a couple, the time has come to leave Hong Kong! We left our shoebox apartment in Sai Ying Pun and embarked on making our way to leg one of our journey: China! More specifically, Yangshuo.
My bag weighs a tonne. Rob looks like he’s going away for a long weekend. Standard. We had ummed and ahhed about whether to fly to Guilin but in the end, decided on the train. China is very different to Honkers. Five mins in to arriving in Shenzhen and I had already seen a baby with the bum cut out of his trousers. Lots of outdoor voices, lots of spitting, lots of people. Took us an hour to collect our train ticket at Shenzhen station, good job we allowed more than ample time. Ample time - a rarity for us as we are usually dashing around last minute. Start as we mean to go on! Getting more and more delirious as time passes, have a seriously heavy cold and left my voice back in Potato Head in Honkers with that final, final farewell drink. Getting there (cue Rob): MTR to Lok Ma Chau border crossing (easier connection to the correct Shenzhen MTR red line than Lo Wu). Train straight to Shenzhen North (Shenzhen Bei). Booked tickets in advance with Ctrip (probably the best English language travel website in China for booking trains and flights). Three hour bullet train Shenzhen North > Guilin North (Guilin Bei), then CNY 350 taxi down to Yangshuo. Probably easiest to get your hotel to arrange pickup to avoid aggressive haggling with all the touts outside the station. Avoid Guilin entirely, and definitely don’t consider staying there. Days most essential travel item: Bose noise-cancelling headphones Comments are closed.
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AuthorsRob & Charlie's travelling adventures on their long journey back to London after living in Hong Kong. Four continents, twelve countries, lots of experiences. Archives
July 2017
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Robert Ware & Charlotte Nunn |