Southern China

Hainan, Guangxi and Hunan Provinces
Sanya - Dadonghai Bay China Beachlife A very commen sight on beaches in China: (1.) Parasol, because Chinese don't like to be tanned, (2.) swim ring, becuase many chinese can't swim, (3.) dress or long clothes, against the sun, and because one doesn't want to look too sexy - many Chinese are still quite prudish. Wimmelbook When the Chinese finally come to the beach in late afternoon and evening, it looks like a "Wimmelbook" picture (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wimmelbilderbuch) - a chaotic aggregation of many, many people, running, shouting, crawling, splashing, digging, chatting.... Chiina Beachlife As the chinese don't like the sun, the pool is virtualy abandoned during the day, but fills up at night... with children, that is. At School Again Being a bit worn out from travelling and not happy with my chinese skills, I decided to do some more studying, be it only for a week. This is my official school entry foto at Omeida Chinese Academy in Yangshuo.
Chinese Barbecue Omeida does a lot of school activites with the main goal to mix western students learning Chinese with chinese students learning English. This night was barbecue, which seems to be popular all over china. Whatever you want to eat, just put it on a stick and grill it... Yangshuo Yangsho is famous for it's wonderful landscape of karst mountains, here seen from Yangshuos TV tower. Yangshuo Favourite Activity I Best thing to do in Yangshuo is cycle around the karst mountains. I did this every afternoon after class - it's so chilled out and was also a little compensation for the mountain bike season, who's start I missed back home. Yangshuo Favourite Activity II The other hugely popular activity is to drift down the river on a bamboo raft - leaving the river almost as crowded as the main shopping alley in Yangshuo.... Graduation The second official foto from school was my "graduation foto" - it took me just one week to graduate ;-) Becky, on my side, was my teacher for the week and did a great job, making the best out of the few days I had at school.
Guilin On a short stopover in Guilin I walked around the city lakes, which are famous for their Sun and Moon twin pagodas... Rooftop Terrace Guilin itself did not really appeal to me, but the rooftop terrace of my hostel did! It made one feel like being on the countryside instead of in the middle of a 5 mio people city. City Lights Dragon Back Rice Terraces Dragon Back Rice Terraces in the north of Guilin are famed, and after a visit there I can understand why. It's a beautiful area and the terraces are truly impressive... It Won't Be Organic The rice produces here does not seem to be organic, though.... I saw many farmers spraying some chemicals on their fields :-(
Sunrise Over Rice Terraces For once getting up early was rewarded with a beautiful morning atmosphere over the teracces IMG 9250 (2) IMG 9254 (2) Jiangjiajie National Park China tourism claims, that the landscape in the Avatar movie was inspired by the one in Zhangjiajie National Park. It's not true, but it's easy to understand why one would say that. And the scenery is really stunning. Less stunning are the incredible masses of tourists (mostly chinese tour groups, whose tour guides have - remember? - those little speakers turned to max. volume) which literally takes away most of the parks tranquility. IMG 9298 (2) The park is full of monkey, which thankfully are not as cheeky as the ones seen in other parks.
Avatar Scenery Not So Grand Sightseeing Platform Day two in the park was not as pleasent anymore - it was pouring down most of the day, leaving the "Grand Sightseeing Platform" without any sight at all. On the plus side, there weren't many sighings of chinese tour groups either ;-) Best Friend On A Rainy Day In the first two hours I was hiking I literally saw a hand full of people, but dozens of these fellows, many of which saved their lives by jumping away in the last moment before being squashed by my hiking boot... Some Mercy In The End At last the weather showed some mercy and cleared up a bit, unveiling the fabulous view on the Tianzi mountain range. Back in Hongkong Bock to where it all started 24 weeks ago - Hongkong
On The Way To Sunset Peak I didn't spend much time in the city this time, but preferred to go out to the outlying islands, for instance to hike the sunset peak. The flora doesn't look very tropical, but the climate was very much so - hot and humid, i.e. very sweaty... On the picture is an Christoph, an old friend from back home, who is now living in Hongkong. Sunset Peak With a height of 869m this is the third highest peak in Hong Kong. A pleasant, but sweaty ascent starting ob sea level. Big Buddha on Lantau Island The Big Buddha on Lantau Island has become a major tourist attaraction - to go there on a weekend you'll have to queue up for the cable car for 2 hours... (or, if you have a local source of information, take the bus with zero waiting time :-). After a six month tour through buddhist territory one is not easily impressed by buddha statues anymore - still, this one looke nice from this perspective, like sitting on a cloud of trees... Detail in Po Lin Monastery Ngong Ping 360 The cable car tooke me back from the Big Buddha towards the airport, from where my plane back home will take off in just a few hours....
Farewell So that's it - after 24 weeks in South East Asia, 17 of which in China, it's time to say goodbye.... Thanks for following my pictures and sharing this incredible experience with me!