Sunday 28 October – The ride on the Maglev train from downtown Shanghai to the airport was amazing. It takes 7 minutes to get to the airport on the Maglev to go by car takes 45 minutes!!  The windows are designed in such a way that when you look out of them you don’t realise how fast your are travelling.  If you did it would make some people feel sick.

Our Tour Guide Miranda accompanied us to the airport so check in was nice an easy.  Our luggage was overweight so we had to pay a 230 RNB fee about £23.  We were then called back because Scott’s case had a large fly spray aerosol can in it which they confiscated.

The flight left 20 minutes late but we arrived in Guilin 5 minutes early. The flight was very much like a flight to Spain, with the attendants going round with drinks, a small meal and as we came into land some small polo mints!!

We were picked up at the airport by a driver and driven to Yangshuo which took just under an hour.  What a contrast with Beijing and Shanghai.   Instead of bumper to bumper cars, traffic jams, skyscrapers and row after row of tall apartment blocks, here in Guilin and Yangshuo you see green fields, amazing sculptured Karst hills, nice small hamlets of houses and there is very little traffic on the roads.

We are staying at the Old manor House hotel situated in Xia Tang village which is about 10 minutes by car from Yangshuo. Thirteen extended families live in the village all with the surname Wang.

The Manor House was built in 1400 in the Ming Dynasty. After the communist took over China in 1949 the house was given to the villagers.  In the 1990s they moved out into new houses which had been built in the village and the Manor House fell into disrepair.

In 2014 a visitor from Germany negotiated to rent the Manor House from the villagers and he renovated it to its past glory using traditional materials and building methods.  All the rooms are decorated in traditional Chinese style with hand made wooden furnishings and decorated with an array of antiques and pieces of local artwork. Its now a boutique hotel in a Ming dynasty building. Absolutely gorgeous.