Day 10...Yangshuo

This morning started with a two hour bike ride up to a place called Moon hill. Even though I haven't ridden a bike in years, the saying is true, you don't forget. Dom was not looking forward to this however as apparently he is not a great fan of bike riding. Conveniently his back was at him so he sat this activity out. It was a hard slog up to the moon hill through muddy paths, shabby villages and even shabbier looking people. The funniest thing was that when we were in the middle of a load of rice fields on our merry way, with the last village being at least 15 minutes back, a woman on a bike appeared out of nowhere trying to sell us postcards and some contraption that resembled a table tennis bat with chickens on it. We couldn't figure out how she could have known we were there until we came up with the theory that our tour guide must text all the sellers when we are approaching so they know when to come. This seems far fetched...but we have evidence. We had taken no pump with us in the case of a flat tyre, which of course happened to one of the guys. Conveniently as we were wondering what to do, the woman appeared...our tour guide then went over to the sellers bike and took it! With no question! So our tour guide must have known her even though she denied it...its all a big ploy to get the tourists money!

Anyhoo, we eventually got to moon hill which is basically a big rock with a massive hole running through it on top of a mountain, hard to describe! To get to the top of the mountain took about 20 - 40 minutes up steps (im not totally sure, it just seemed like an awful long time!). Once at the top, we could see for miles. Once we got that far it seemed a shame not to climb right to the very top of the actual moon hill. This however was not up steps. I think this would also count as the first actual trekking I have done on this holiday (remember Doms in bed with a 'bad back'). The four of us had to climb rocks and wade through trees and mud to reach the top, when we got there though, this place was like sitting on the edge of the world. You could quite easily sit there for hours. Funnily enough, going down was tougher than going up but thankfully my trusty new boots had a good grip, but they aren't so white any more!

As ever with China we had a 2 hour journey to get back to our base. As we cycled there, we had to cycle back...doh! I definately knew at this point that I had earned the right to stuff myself tonight in the Chinese cooking course that Dom and I were going to...

Dom is going to take over from here...

The afternoon was something we were really looking forward too- Chinese cookery course.So myself, Roisin, Kate, Katie and Sarah were collected from the hotel. Our first stop was the market, where the first stage of the course began. Unfortunately the market really could have done damage to our appetites from what we saw! It started as fairly standard stuff, a few funny looking mushrooms and gigantic cucumbers. Then we saw ducks and rabbits in cages and people picking the rabbit they wanted. Obviously you all know what happened next! Anyway then we saw some meat hanging off the railings so we went to see what it could be. It was dog, you hear about the Chinese eating dog but you don't really believe it until you see it. There were dead dogs everywhere, they still had all their fur on and everything, but they were slit down the middle in their chest and pulled open so you could see inside them. Then there was a load of dogs in cages waiting for inevitable. Also, as they slaughtered the animals there and then, we were standing on rivers of blood. One guy loaded three dogs onto the back of his motorbike. It really was quite full on and not for the faint hearted or dog lovers. So that was an experience, and not a nice way to get into an afternoon of cooking meat! We left the market and were picked up in this small van, we started driving into these really remote areas, it actually felt like we were being taken kidnap. Of course we weren't and when we arrived in the cookery place it was fantatsic. We each had our own cooking area, each had a wok, oils, ingredients etc. There were 5 dishes we would be preparing and we would eat our own dishes after we had cooked them. The first dish was eggplant in an oyster sauce, basically fried aubergines in oyster sauce, the 2nd was Beer Fish, the third was steamed stuffed vegetables, the fourth chicken in cashew nuts and finally garlic vegetables. The chef showed us firstly how to make them and then just left us do it ourselves. It was great fun, although very tough to get every dish perfect, i think we manged it though, they all tasted pretty delicious to us and i had the satisfaction of knowing i cooked them myself. The evening was finished with a few beers in the bar in the hotel (well i had a few beers, Roisin and Kate decided to have a Muff Diver Shot, cream everywhere although i think thats the idea!). We watched U2 live in Slane so a nice way to end a great day.

Tomorrow is the last day in China, we set off for Hong Kong in the afternoon after a cruise up the river Li.

Team Domro