Backpacking begins: Guilin 17th-20th

My new uni job in Changsha doesn't start till March so right now I'm backpacking around south China with a friend for a while, despite having little money. We started in Guilin, which is a beautiful mountainous city with the scenic Li river meandering through it. Perhaps the best day there was when we took a raft trip down river to Yangshuo - a small traditional farming town in the mountains where we rented some bikes to explore a bit of countryside. Also went to the a strange place called the 'Tiger and bear mountain village' where Scott was particulaly keep to go as we'd heard they released a live bull into the tiger pen as a visitor attraction. They'd stopped doing that apparently, but we were subjected to some disturbing performances invloving tigers jumping through fire hoops, walking over people,and one riding a horse, plus bears riding bikes, walking on hind legs with trumpets, and some other equally depressing (but weirdly mesmorising) animal stunts. Guilin is a beautiful place and I'd highly recommend it. The mountain formations are like nothing I've seen before - I uploaded Guilin's depiction on the 20 yuan note to give an idea. Right now I'm in a town right on the south coast waiting for a train to Sanya on Hainan island. This place is crazy. It's just a small town with palm trees everywhere, street sellers, apartment blocks and little else. Asked a taxi driver if he knew a good internet cafe (yep in Chinese) and now I'm here. Can't wait to get to Sanya - it's just a small, chilled tropical town with some awesome white sand beaches. We're kind of near Vietnam now and it shows, so different to central China where I've spent most of my time. We're not really planning where we go much, just goin from city to city, hostel to hostel and wherever sounds good. So glad I came south, so warm here!