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Published: November 17th 2006
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Cycling Across the Countryside
Erin atop her pink bicycle. The crown of flowers on her head is something little old village ladies sell along the side of the dirt road. A steal at 2RMB (25 cents) she bought one to adorn her cycle as well. Greetings from backpacker mecca, Yangshuo!
We've quite possibly just had our most favorite and best day on this whole adventure so far. Now that I have you all on the edge of your seats...
Yangshuo is a great little town, but it's incredibly touristy. Set among some of the most beautiful scenery we've witnessed yet, it's almost like Disneyland's version of China. Sort of. There is a main street called West Street (very famous) in the downtown area and it's lined with over 300 bars, restaurants, cafes, and guesthouses. And let's not forget teeming with backpackers and tourists. From all over the world! The cafes ALL have English menus (a rarity in most other Chinese cities), they all serve mostly Western food, and you can find a decent cappucino or espresso almost anywhere (this last one I'll just trust other people's opinions, because I don't drink coffee). This also means prices are high, and they've caught on and don't allow outside beverages inside the cafes or restaurants (a 675ml bottle of beer sells for 3 or 4RMB in the supermarket, most cafes are selling them for 10, sometimes as high as 15!) (I know I know, *GASP*, $2 whole
Gorgeous Backdrop
It was such pleasure cruising along through this scenery. dollars for a giant bottle of beer...you're probably all scoffing at us for turning into such penny pinchers...but when you're used to paying 50 cents and they are asking $2...it's about the principal of the thing!)
Anyways. We booked a great hotel (yes hotel, not hostel) on the internet for a killer price. 80RMB a night for a private room with our very own bathroom. And *drum roll* free internet in our hotel room! This doesn't just mean wifi either. We have an entire computer in our room!
The manager of the hotel is the nicest person we've met so far in China. She's been very helpful in booking tours for us, telling us about the area, and showing us good places to eat. I feel like we've made a friend, and I haven't felt like that anywhere else but here.
On to today.
The hotel manager set us up with an excellent day of sightseeing, with her as the guide. It was just the two of us and her, so it was perfect and very personal feeling. We woke early, had a delicious breakfast next door, and then set off on bicycles. We pedaled (she
rode her scooter) along the countryside, passing rice fields, farmers and chickens, all with the beautiful and stunning backdrop of the limestone "mountains". It was so awesome. We biked for an hour when we reached the river where we were to board a bamboo raft for 2 and raft down. They load the bikes onto the raft for you, you sit in the middle, and float down the peaceful river enjoying the scenery. We motioned to our oar man to head us towards one of the floating "bars" where we were ripped off for beer (10 RMB a bottle! and our oar man asked for one too, on our tab!) but it didn't matter because we were in such a good mood.
The river trip includes some small "rapids" but we only had the fun of going over 2. For the rest our driver made us get out and stand on the side while he pushed the boat over and then we got back on. I don't know why he did this, because going over them was obviously the most fun part of the trip. Perhaps us chubby Westerners weighed too much...I don't know.
The trip was short,
because we didn't want to pay double the price for the longer one, so a short hour later we were back on shore pedaling our bikes with our guide. She took us to a hut on the side of the road for some rice noodles in broth for lunch and we were off for our next destination. The Water Cave...
The Water Cave is THE thing to do in Yangshuo (according to the flyer) and we'd seen about a million photos of it so we were highly anticipating the fun. We locked up the bikes at the ticket office, jumped in a mini bus for a 15 minute ride to the cave and donned our helmets (safety first kids!). From there we stepped into a small row boat and headed for the opening to the cave. I was a little nervous, not ever really having been inside an actual cave like this before, and we all had to duck way down because the opening was so small.
Inside the cave it was dark, only small lights lit the pathway and the important features. We saw stalagmites and stalactites which formed various "shapes" such as lions, dragons, and even
Cold Beer
What is rafting if you don't have a cold beer? In Yangshuo they have a beer we hadn't tried yet, it has 12% alcohol! the Great Wall! It was impressive how these rocks really looked like their names! It takes 10 000+ years for a cave as large as this one to form.
The highlight inside the cave is the "Mud Baths". We wore our bathing suits in anticipation for this event. Finally we reached them, and we quickly changed and came out to the bathing area. It required a climb up some slippery rocks to get in, but was it ever worth it! Imagine swimming in a pool entirely full of mud! It wasn't very deep, only up to my knees, but the bottom was thick clumpy mud and the "water" felt silty. As soon as you enter you are covered with the brown liquid. It was so eerie feeling, to be in the middle of a dark damp cave swimming in a near black pool of mud! Of course they take the requisite photos of you that you can then purchase, but our lovely guide chose not to bathe and instead held all our belongings and snapped away while we frolicked, swam and covered each other in the mud. There was even a mud slide (Devlin was brave and went down,
Lunch Stop
The street hut where we ate lunch, authentic Guilin rice noodle soup. It was SO delicious! I chose not to)!
I've never had so much fun getting dirty in my life. We swam for almost half an hour and then decided to get out. They had a natural "shower" where you could stand and very cold water cleaned you off, it felt very refreshing. I had mud in my hair, in my ears, even in my belly button! Once clean (somewhat) we packed our bathing suits into a plastic bag and continued through the cave. The rest of the cave was the same type of figures, incredible none the less.
After the cave we emerged into the sunlight via the rowboat and headed for the mini bus back to our bikes. Time to cycle back to the hotel. We stopped along the way to snap some pics of the famous Moon Hill, a limestone karst with a peculiar hole in the middle. When viewed from different angles it looks like different phases of the moon. Hardcores can pay to climb up it, and we even saw a rock climber dangling precariously in the hole part. We were happy enough to see it from stable ground.
The ride back took a bit longer than
Fruit of Choice
I swear the bananas taste different here but Dev doesn't think so. Fruit is one of the cheapest things to snack on, between us we eat 10-12 bananas a day! Kumquats and oranges are high on the list also. an hour because we had to make the extra distance which we had covered on boat that morning. Also we stopped quite a few times to take pictures of the amazing scenery.
This is a day I will not forget. How many people can say they swam in a mud pool in the middle of a deep underground cave?! Now that we are back at the hotel and have showered, we're feeling exhausted. All the bike riding, rafting and caving has worn us out!
Our plans might be changing in regards to Hong Kong. We have done some online research and realized just HOW expensive it really is. It's seeming like it will be very difficult to stay there on our limited budget, so I think we're going to either skip it, or spend only one night there. This requires changing our flights and our itinerary, so a discussion is in order before plans are finalized.
We'll keep you posted! More adventures to come...
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