We were finally allowed to leave China after our visas were retrieved from the missing tour guide as I explained below, but what I didn’t say was that when we were on the train platform and barred from leaving the country, an attorney who was part of our tour group wanted us to make a run for the train. Tim said, “Are you crazy?? There are policemen on the platform armed with rifles.” Needless to say, we didn’t do what he suggested and took a ship back to Hong Kong that night, dining on beer and cookies in our postage-stamp-sized cabin.

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We went on a day tour from Hong Kong to the urban district of Panyu, situated on the Pearl River, and the city of Guangzhou, both part of China’s Guangdong Province. The trip was a disaster since Tim was sick for most of it and our tour guide switched places with another guide but took our group’s visas with him, as a result of which the authorities at the Guangzhou train station refused to let us leave the country, which was pretty scary. We finally got it resolved with the tour agency but insisted on leaving China that night, only possible on a ship heading for Hong Kong since the trains didn’t run overnight.

Elaborate decoration, Guangzhou, posted earlier: