My Lil’ Saigon

I went to China.

It was pretty. I will agree with that. We went to Yangshuo, a wonderful little tourist area in Guilin, Guangzhou province. Supposedly it is one of the most beautiful spots in China. From my pictures (as seen below) you can see for yourself. The area was great, but it is really difficult to get to from Vietnam. I only really had 3 options, and only one of them had a reasonable price. Unfortunately, the one we took involved a 8 hour layover (which then turned into a 10 hour layover). We didn’t have anything we cared to see in Guangzhou, so we just stayed in the airport, where we planned on resting in the airport hotel. Unfortunately that didn’t work out. Eventually I fell asleep on the floor of the airport, something I thought was entirely common, but apparently not. The wife notes that I received many strange stares, and possibly one or 2 people took pictures. In case any of those folks are reading, I’d like to see those pictures.

While in Yangshuo I came to a realization, that I’m not a big fan of southern Chinese food (I’ve had some traditional northern food before, and that was not so oily). I also learned to appreciate Vietnamese food much more. I was actually craving for fish sauce by the time I flew back. Another thing I noticed was that beer was not a common product for consumption. Though it is present, not many Chinese seem to drink it during the meal. It is such a stark contrast to Vietnam that I was shocked, though I had been told that before.

The way back was a nightmare, with flights being “canceled” or as some people call it “non-existant due to no customers”. I’m convinced that the flight we had booked no longer exists or only runs in high tourist season. Either way, we had to sit in a airport hotel for 10 hours until the next flight to our destination, eat 2 meals off of trays I can only imagine they borrowed from the local prison, and deal with power in our room that continually went on and off. Then after being assured through terribly broken English (the best English speaker in the airport as well) that we would have someone waiting at the next airport to take us to a hotel, when we arrived the entire airport was virtually empty (at 10pm), with the only employee for the airline we were using being a stinky little bastard who wouldn’t give me any information and took forever to arrange our hotel room. I was asking for the next flight to Ho Chi Minh, but he kept refusing and stating that I should just come back in the morning at 7am. Finally another employee came by and sat down. So I bothered her until she would look for the next flight for me. She was unable to do it and asked the stinky little man, when he saw I wasn’t going to give up he finally looked and told me it was at 3pm. All of that trouble when he could have just told me the truth about 10 minutes previously. The hotel was passable at least

Enough of that though. I was very happy to be back. Not sure if I’ll ever go back to China. Check Flickr for some awesome pictures of the Yangshuo Area. Otherwise, here are my pictures.