Wuhan, Guilian, Pandas and Monkeys!

Wuhan is a city of 5 million people, and I'd never heard of it! Ended up spending Monday there - all trains to Guilin were booked up for the next 2/3 days - and instead booked on an overnight sleeper bus that was leaving at 7.30pm Monday night for the 12 hour ride. Had a quick run around Wuhan since we were there - walked across the Yangzi once again on a huge bridge that crosses the river through the city - and checked out snack alley - where great bargains for food were available. A town not used of seeing tourists - we were a bit hit with the locals again, posing for pictures and at one stage, we were acknowledged by one girl saying "Hello beautiful boys!" - I think I could move to this country! The sleeper bus was kinda cool - more expensive than the train, it was far classier - but not really as comfortable as it was hard to sleep with the bus waving and hitting the odd pothole. Slept I did anyway - and woke in Guilin bus station to be turfed out of the bus fairly rapidly.. Once settled Tuesday morning - went to check out the smallest city we'd been to so far - as it had a population of a mere 600,000. The city was very nice - with lakes and parks that we didn't have to pay into ! Its surrounded by these funky peaks all over - a feature of this province. Met a local teacher on he's lunch break who chatting with us for an hour on local culture, the Chinese education system, the teaching of history etc. After a sushi lunch - went to climb one of the most central of these funky peaks - which at 200m provided great views of the city and the Li River.
To complete the evening - went to the Seven Star park on the eastern side of the city - which had 7 of these peaks - hence the name. The park also hosted a Panda wildlife sanctuary - and although late in the evening - we got to see some of the rare local bears chewing on some dinner. At one stage - it was like the Kit Kat ad, as there was no sign in the outdoor pen - but the bears were in for the night.


As dusk was falling - we got the idea to climb one of the peaks and get a decent view. The path up was fairly quiet - no other tourists in sight - but the view was good. As we came to the top of a series of steps however - there was a bit of shaking in the trees that was a little unnerving....at which point we noticed that there was a tribe of monkeys swinging over our heads. We were about to continue until a large member of the tribe...the size of a big dog started walking on the path towards us, and sat right in the middle blocking our way - with he's back turned. With the other lads gathering in the trees overhead - took the option to turn back and abandon the climb! On the ground - there was loads of other monkey hanging around....kinda cool - once they don't stage an attack. One day was enough for Guilin - and on Wednesday morning - we'd catch a bus to the small town of Yangshao - which is the reason we came to this part of the country in the first place......