We have had a fairly quiet day today as once again the weather is rainy. In the end we got up slowly, had breakfast and wandered around buying a few souvenirs. I got a set of Chinese placemats and table runner thing and a few cushion covers for just under a tenner. Probably not all that cheap but I felt happy with them anyway.

As we were leaving in the afternoon a fella chased us up the street. He turned about to be someone Simon went to school and played rugby with and they had a quick 10 minutes chat and catch up. He told us he has been living in Yangshuo for 9 months teaching English. It seems to be a popular occupation for Brits here. It’s strange to see people you know but not entirely unexpected I suppose.

We catch the bus back to Guilin which takes around an hour an a half, not a very comfortable ride but cheap. Luckily it drops us right outside the train station and we find the waiting area for train T40 to Guangzhou. This is fairly close to the border of Hong Kong and we plan to then catch another train across the border in the morning. The journey should take 10 hours and our train is scheduled to leave at 10pm.

We soon realise that the train actually goes right to the border town of Shenzhen and once we get on the train Simon alters our tickets and pays the extra so we can go all the way. We settle down for the night, the couple we are sharing our hard sleeper compartment are quiet and friendly and soon its lights out for everyone.