Hi Everybody....

Well the final stint of the whistle stop tour of China, Guangzhou, is now over as I caught the "not so slow boat from China" back to Hong Kong this morning and am resting up here and doing a major Lan Kwai Fong Bar avoidance thing this time....

Anyway I had the most enjoyable train journey so far from Xi'An to Guangahou.. It was a monster 24 hour thing but I met the craziest bunch of Chinese folk yet....I bumped into a woman at the train station who ended up on the bunk opposite me and she spoke really good English so we got chatting. Her name is Liu...

Anyway my celebrity status was re-confirmed as word got round the carriage that there was a crazy western bird traveling on her own on the train... So Liu had to do a lot of translating from my crap Mandarin into real Mandarin and English in to Mandarin.... I got a real grilling from some old duffer who couldn't believe I wasn't married or had a boyfriend and then set off through the train trying to find me a hubbie only to bring some really choice specimens back for my perusal who then wanted to talk to me too so it kinda got a bit crowded after a while.... One Chinese guy told me that it was important to find time always to make love and he said to me "I have been making love with my wife for 12 years" Well I had to congratulate on his stamina!!! Liu and I decided that he was talking about having someone to love than the "act" itself but it made us laugh for hours afterwards....

One guy came and sat next to me and said " My name's Jack and my Father is a pheasant...!!!" He hadn't got any wings but I wondered if his Dad did being a pheasant and all....Anyway Jack brought his new wife and their wedding album to show me which was great and then he produced a massive bag of tomatoes and cucumbers and gave me a pile of lush tomatoes and cucumbers which I had to tuck into on the spot so as not insult... they were pretty damn yummy and not bad being as they were grown by a pheasant... Anyway this opened the flood gates to lots of lunch boxes and parcels of food being opened and watching stupid English girl try all this stuff. I was force fed all sorts of strange stuff for the entire journey and had to pretend to be asleep a couple of times just to avoid more food. The weirdest thing was these pickled egg things that were pickled in like soy and vinegar and were entirely black and looked like a hard boiled egg that had been living in a fridge for 10 years.... It was actually kind of nice but rather strong....

Then they discovered that I smoked so out came Chinese cigarettes of varying degrees and my own little entourage of smoking companions every time I went for a smoke.... I would go with one cigarette and come back with three or four and some of the diehards wanted me to try one after the other which was just not possible.... Anyway they had a good ol' laugh at me trying these things and in between the phrase book and lonely planet flying up and down the carriage and lots of giggling it was a real hoot

 ...We were woken up the following morning by the National Anthem blaring out at 6.30 and then the "news" at about 80 decibels and then the earplugs really did have to come out... As Rob will no doubt vouch, there is no communicating with me in the morning before consuming a gallon of Earl Grey and having a smoke... and so opening your eyes and having some randon bloke standing over you asking you where you are from was not so great at 6.30 am.....

At the end of the journey when we arrived in Guangzhou they all came to say bye and shake my hand and I think they were kind of disappointed they didn't manage to find me a nice Chinese boy during the journey...Liu stuffed me on to the bus and I headed for Shamian Dao in Guangzhou which is a tiny little island of sauntering pedestrians, parks and greenery and a cheap Youth Hostel.....oh yeah and loads of Americans showing off their newly adopted Chinese baby!! Nuff said about that.....the food from the market across the river is just awesome and you can stuff your face for a little over 20p....it also helps when you have a Canadian in tow who speaks fluent Mandarin, hurrah for Andrew ...

I shared a dorm with 5 blokes. Andrew the Canadian chap, Brian (American) and Ben (French) who was impressed by my vocabulary of French naughty words and I picked up a few more.... 2 blokes called Kim (1 Korean 1 Chinese) and a really grumpy Russian who was an arse!!! Anyway spent a few days trotting round Guanzhou but there isn't a vast amount to do apart form eat as it's meant to be THE best food in China and I kind of have to agree all though some of the suspects that were on offer as meat were of clearly questionable ancestry.... The weather was pretty grim too so yesterday was spent in the dorm playing cards and not doing much else of any note....

Anyway I took the boat back to Hong Kong this morning and am now residing here and have to be at the airport at the crack of sparrow fart on Saturday morning to fly to Vietnam and I am so looking forward to getting there... It's meant to be awesome but more of that at a later date....

But for now I'll leave you with a couple of Chinese funnies that I've spotted en route that have just had us in tears....

The first was in the market in Beijing a huge sign "WOMEN'S COCKS" 5 yaun a pair (should say SOCKS!).

The second was in the Youth Hostel in Xi'An....sign in reception "WE WILL CONFIRM YOUR FIGHT FOR YOU AT NO EXTRA CHARGE"! and the last one was in a hostel I briefly looked at..."FOR DISTURBING PHONE CALL PLEASE CONTACT RECEPTION". I took that as an omen....and walked out hoping that it was an alarm call and nothing else!

Anyway yous lot, take care, I'm off for a beer and then chill out in my shoe box room.....

Will catch ya from Vietnam next week..

Loadsa love to you all,

Lisa / Lillie

xxxx