Little Guilin

We took a comfortable coach to Tam Coc, described as Ha Long on land, or little Guilin (an area in southern China with limestone karst mountains jutting out of the landscape). It was very beautiful and we stayed in a guesthouse in the countryside a couple of kilometres from town. The hosts were super sweet and communicated through a brilliant little translation device they carried everywhere. After a good night's rest, Flora was fully recovered so we hired a motorbike to explore the surrounding area. We headed to Trang An, an ecological tourist site where you take a small rowing boat on a three hour trip along a network of rivers connected by caves, and visiting temples along the way, as well as the film set for King Kong. The longest of the caves was 1000m, and it was pretty cool carefully navigating our way

through the narrow low cave to the other side. We stopped on the way back to have lunch overlooking a lake. The following day we rode out to Mua Cave to climb the 500 steps to the top for breathtaking views of the surrounding area. It was a hot climb, but fortunately in the shade in the afternoon, and Flora was a superstar climbing to the top. We then headed over to the bird sanctuary, not far from our guesthouse. The ride on the motorbike was gorgeous,

but as we arrived at the sanctuary at dusk, without any insect repellent, we were reluctant to go out onto the lake to get the best view of the birds coming home to roost and having their supper. We also had to get back to our guesthouse to get showered, have dinner, and get to the night train.
As we waited for the train, Flora independently burst into song (YNWA) on the platform. When the train arrived at 22.30 we were delighted to find our 4 berth cabin empty aside from us (especially as we didn't get Flora a ticket). So we all had a bed to ourselves and settled in to the cabin for a good nights sleep. During the night, at another stop, a Vietnamese man joined us in our cabin. Once Flora was aware of this, she wanted to sleep with us and joined Pedro on his bunk.