Got up, eventually, at 8.45am. Despite an early night and a long sleep getting up isn't any easier! Met the others in the lobby and went to get our bikes from the hire place. A dubious array of bikes if ever there was one! We were lucky enough to espy and blag the only 2 bikes up front with front and rear suspension and gears!
A few others managed to get mountain bikes but the rest had push bikes, with one couple taking on a tandem!
We headed off slightly apprehensive, bearing in mind the fund we'd had travelling by road thus far, we were sure to be in for an adventure. Before a minute had passed we had to cross a busy road. Guessing who had right of way seemed to be all part of the fun.
So off we headed into the countryside. It was very beautiful and we were so close to everything. Coming off the main road, we passed through small villages - with many "hello; goodbyes" from everyone we passed. A lot of the houses had red banners surrounding the doors - Eric said this was in celebration of the spring festival.
The houses in general were extremely basic, with just a couple of rooms downstairs, with glass in the windows if you're very lucky. Very little in the way of furniture and a TV. Upstairs, the buildings were virtually open and more often than not had washing hanging up. The countryside was mostly fields/paddy fields/orange groves with karsts in the near distance. We saw many people working the fields, often with very skinny oxen.
One of the highlights was passing a kindergarten all the children rushing to greet us from inside the gates, shouting "hello" while we replied with "ni hao", enjoying their smiles in return. It was amazing that every time we stopped we'd be greeted by old ladies emerging from the undergrowth to offer us postcards/souvenirs/trinkets. They proved most persistent...
Stopping for lunch at Moon Hill, a place where a natural hole through a karst had occurred, we then split up for the afternoon to go their separate ways, some to climb Moon Hill while some of us went to visit a local "Water Cave" with Eric. This proved to be quite the adventure from the very beginning as we were packed into a smaller and even more rickety version of the A Team Van and were driven at extremely high speed to the cave across very rough terrain.
We arrived, safely, after our white-knuckle ride 20 minutes later, quite in need of the loo... until we caught a smell of the facilities. Still, needs must, so you close your eyes and your nose and, well, you know...
Anyway, back to the cave entrance and by this time we were sporting particularly attractive (not to mention useless) red plastic bags to protect our feet from getting too wet, before receiving hard hats of various shapes, sizes and quality. From here we entered the water cave via the "boat", well, a kind of raft with sides, really. After having to duck to get into the caves we disembarked the boat and wound our merry if very un-health-and-safety way round a not very well lit but beautiful underground cave. The pinnacle was he underground waterfall at the end, beautiful but un-photographable due to the light (well that's my excuse). Back out the way we came quicker than going in as by now the plastic bags had disintegrated, we drove back in the A Team Van and then biked back to town before a quick clean-up before heading back to the veggie restaurant with everyone in tow this time. After dinner we took a wander down the street for some shopping and the bargaining, something which took some getting used to.
Then to bed.
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