2005 Yangshuo Fall Triathalon

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Greetings all. Today Sherry and I did our own little Yangshuo Triathalon and we are wiped!

LEG ONE (bike)
Departing at 6:30 AM having consumed some Chinese donuts (hey! that doesn’t _look_ like cinnamon), Coke (for the caffeine), and a bottle of Orange-ate, we set out with our guide Robert. It was butt-early, meaning no tourists, just people biking to school/work. The scenery is absolutely phenomenal around here. The hills are just amazing, tall, thin crags, the ‘classic’ view of China that you see sometimes in their art pieces. We were both riding fully-suspended mt. Bikes. Mine had a kick-stand that kept coming down while I was riding.

Along the way we saw rice fields, water buffalo, and got a fair mix of hellos/ni hao's/blank stares.

LEG TWO (hike)
Our biking destination was Moon Hill, a pretty looking, tall-ish hill with a very round arch all the way through it. Our guide recommended against the hike (no kickback for him), but both of us were glad that we did decide to do it. Apparently we climbed up something like 1,200 steps to the arch, and then there was another pretty good climb to the top. Views were lovely, will post photos soon.

The funniest/saddest part were these local women that followed us all the way up, dogging us constantly to buy water/coke/beer and trying to ‘fan us’. It was crazy. Apparently they go up/down 5-10 times a DAY to try and earn a few bucks. One of these women was at least 60. Hats off to them for the effort, but it's a tough life.

LEG THREE (swim)
We threw a bit of a bone to our guide (commission for him) by springing for a cave tour nearby to the Moon Hill. It ended up being pretty cool. We didn’t have our swim gear with us -- some of the cave involved getting wet -- BUT we were able to purchase, for 1.25 USD each, so-called ‘his and his’ Beijing 2008 swim trunks. Let me tell you, these shorts were SHORT.

So, there you had us, Sherry in her men's trunks and sports bra, me only in my trunks, geared up with helmet and flashlight, feeling pretty darn naked waiting around for our guide. It was a bit of a sight, and no I cannot promise photos for fear of digital closeups that might be electronically trafficked to further audiences/potential future employers.

Anyway, the cave tour was cool, a lot more rough that the concrete-path tours that you get sometimes, but not full-on spelunking.The highlight of the cave was the mud bath. Way down in the depths of the cave was a pretty big pool of very muddy water/very watery mud. We slipped into it, it was about 3 or 4 feet deep, and it was the weirdest sensation because you could just effortlessly float. You could sit, lay on your back, lay on your side. It was like this zero-gravity, liquid-recliner experience. Really cool.

Of course part of me was wondering how much animal waste might be found in this mud. Fortunately afterwards we were able to take a swim in a nearby cave pool and there was even a little natural shower to rinse off in. Just to clarify, this is all in an underground cave and I am wearing nothing but a very tight/short $1.25 chinese bathing suit and a pair of borrowed plastic flip flops. Sherry will atest to the difficulty that one has walking/crawling through a dark cave while wearing ill-fiitting flip-flops and carrying a flashlight, leaving you only 1 free hand. Of course, I was also lugging a plastic bag with our money belts and camera. Oh the places that you’ll lug your passport and valuables because you just can’t trust leaving them anywhere.

LEG FOUR (bike)
I said this was a triathalon, but technically there were four legs because we had to bike it home after the cave tour (and a stop for lunch). Lunch was ‘beer fish’, a local specialty. We payed a premium price for catfish because they serve you the fish whole here and catfish is an easier fish to pick the meat off the bones. There’s nothing like being completely starving and then spending all your time clumsily pulling meat off a bony fish (with chopsticks).

Sherry is okay with eating fish on this trip (yay!). Her only rule is that we have to rotate the plate with the fish so that it’s not looking her in the eye. Also, the spicy food here and hot weather also has Sherry tasting a bit of the local (cold) beer. It’s called Li Quan and it’s not too shabby.

Did I mention the heat today? In case you were wondering, we absolutely sweated through our clothing by 9:30 am. It was totally brutal biking back to town in the afternoon sun, and when we got back to the oasis that is our air conditioned hotel room, we had to deal with a (thankfully short) power outage on the street.

Did I mention that our guide smoked probably 15 cigarettes _while_ guiding us on his bike today?

WRAPPING IT UP
Tomorrow we head out for Nanning then Kunming in Yunan Province. That is west of here. Our visit to Yanshou and Gianxi Province (I hope I got that right) was nice and relaxing and comfortable. The other day we found out that Jimmy Carter had eaten a meal at the cafe that we ate breakfast at. They serve their french toast with peanut butter, kinda interesting (intersting good) considering that Carter is from Georgia. But, it was interesting (interesting bad) for me because I’m allergic to peanuts. We tried to send the plate back, but the waitress was pissed, I mean really mad. In the end I had to carry the plate back to the kitchen and when we payed the bill I just shorted them the price of the french toast entree.

We met another tourist here that told us that many US presidents have visited this town/area, including Slick Willy, George Bush, Nixon, and Carter (already mentioned).

Andreas sent a message into the sight asking me if we’ve seen any funny english translations of chinese while here. In short, yes we have. Some of them are absolutely hilarious. There are basically three types. All are understandable, but still, they’re pretty funny:
1. misspellings
2. grammatical mistakes
3. literal character by characters translations of the chinese

All I have to say about the first type is that it stinks when they’re carved into granite. Type 2 errors could sometimes be made by native english speakers, e.g. “Happy Hour, beer for 6 yuan if your pretty”. It should be “… if you’re pretty”. The third type are really the most entertaining. I’ve made a list, but I don’t have my notebook with me. I will post as soon as I can. Andreas says that there are some websites out there that have some of these for you.

Gotta go. Early morning Kayaking on the Li River. Happy Chinese National Day, October 1.

-Cory and Sherry

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Comments

[Lesley]

The idea of you two traipsing around in $1.25 bathing suits with screwed up flip flops had me laughing out loud here at work. Thanks for the mid-day comedy break. It sounds like you both are making the absolute most of your experiences. I can't wait to see the list of funny English translations...