Lox, Stock, and Two Smoking Travellers: Yangshuo

---

This post's title movie reference is for my English (not British) travelling partner, Nick.

After the 27 hour journey from Xi'an, Nick and I arrived exhausted in Guilin- which is a big city with not much to see (according to people I spoke to- I have no idea because I didn't wait to find out). We had booked one night hostel here, as we'd be getting in too late to figure out how to get to our real destination, which was Yangshuo. After the usual amount of trouble and frustration, we found the spot, almost got scammed (thats in the last post but it might not have been legible), bought our next tickets (to Shanghai), spent the night uneventful, and the next day hopped on a bus to Yangshuo.

Yangshuo is a fantastic little oasis town constiting of, as far as travellers and tourists are concerned, two streets that are busy and fun and cute and very very catered to westerns- for better and worse. The town is a backpackers hub, with prices a bit hiked (relative to here- so a good meal for 3-4 dollars, 5 if you are real fancy), and so many great activities geared for travellers made easy. English in every restuarant made for hassle free but a bit less authentic meals (though you could choose between western and chinese food- it seems less real when you know what you are ordering and you dont have to work hard to make the servers understand what you mean).

Our first day we got in around 3, found our hostel (booking in advance is necessary for the good/cheap places this time of year- but we've been okaywith just one night in advance so far), and spent awhile walking the streets- almost every store is another handmade craft from wood, stone, yarn, silk, screenprinting, animal bones, etc- no price is set in stone (no pun intended) but bargaining is a skill that is not easily learned= I thought I had it with my experience in the arab market in israel but those guys could take a lesson from the women here. The best trick is to set the price insanely high so that when you get the price down by 75% percent, you think you won. But when you walk away from the store and begin to realize how much you spent on a few rocks... you realize you've been had. and i speak from experience- an experience that I will not recount out of shame.

After grabbing a really good meal, we signed up for a cormorant fishing tour- these tours follow a fisherman who practices the ancient teqnique- which is a bit terrible and mostly awesome to watch. They take a bird that fishes naturally, tie a rope around its neck making it very tight (not closed), put it on a leash, sending it fishing- when it catches a few, they pull it up- force the fish out of their throats, and throw them back in. Wish you could see it for yourself? well, now you can: Cormorant Fishing~

The next day we rented bikes and rode a while up the Yulong River (Yangshuo is situated between the Yulong and Li rivers, which converged just south of the town, making it a hub). We biked for a while, past small towns, rice paddy fields, farms, and great scenery. Eventually we stopped and grabbed a bamboo raft down the river, with our bikes on the back- it was really nice and relaxing, a good reward after a long day of biking in the INCREDIBLY hot sun. (i have great tan lines now).
The raft brought us down river and we biked the rest of the way to the Buddha Water Cave, which is home to (World's Only... uh, really?) natural mud baths!!! The cave consist of HUGE caverns that are chock-full of stalagmites and stalagtites, and the tour comes equipt with a guide whose only job is to tell you what she thinks the rocks look like ("this one is called Monk Kissing Girl" and that one is called "The Great Wall of China"). The mud baths were incredible- I will photos up soon (Nick has them)- and they are awesome. The baths are of thick, all natural (meaning not man made) mud- it is impossible to sit down on the ground, as you float with more bouyancy than the dead sea in Israel (sorry, shira, but its true). I have, since that day, showered appr four times and I still find mud in my hair, its pretty gross (plus side: it has helped my dread locks immensely!)
In the evening we grabbed more great food- there is so much to choose from- many of the restuarants are similar- but most have slight variations in their vegitarian menus- usually different combinations of tofu and vegetables (pumpkin is a new favorite of mine).

The next day we took a cooking class that we had signed up for two days prior- which was run out of Cloud 9 restaruant. I was an older guy, two younger girls, and us- with one instructor. She first took us on a tour of the local produce and meat market- which was really incredible- every vegetable i have everheared of and tons I hadn;t- she explained many of them as we walked by. She bought some (but most was really at the kitchen already- this was partially for fun). in china, when you want chicken - you pick it out from a group of loud, unhappy squaking chickens and bring it home to be killed or have it killed in another part of the market- where you watch them slit the throat, boil it while its still alive, and do the rest right in front of you. . We learned how to identify a healthy chicken, which was cool- but did not have to wattch it killed= the chicken was already ready at the kitchen- we bought some beef and tofu and went back. Altogether we made, from start to finish, three meals that we chose- A chinese chicken dish, beef dish, and tofu dish. I made them all but only ate the tofu one- but still I learned to prepare the meat and how to cook certain flavors- I have recipes, too!

After a short nap, we went for our second class of the day- this was a rock climbing class with Black Rock climbing (there are a few but these guys were awesome and less expensive than some others)- we drove about ten minutes out to this incredible mountain (the scenery all over the area is filled with these mountains in the background everywhere- its like they just pop up everywhere! And we put on the gear and started- we both did the beginner route= Nick has messed up his toe two days before so it was hard for him to climb- but we both managed to finish the second route as well- this one was 22 m (66 ft high)- and I decided to attempt the next hardest route- if not to finish it, only to try it because it was supposed to be considerably harder. Proud to say that I made it up about 3/4 of the way before my fingers started to hurt too much- this route lacked full hand grips, instead it has many finger grips that I didnt have the muscles for. next time, next time.
After a much needed shower and meal, Nick and I decided to treat ourselves to a massage- they are MUCH cheaper here than in the states and I'd never had a professional massage before. We found a place that looked reputable and went it- were led upstairs and were a bit surprised to find our male massuses waiting- but when in Rome... The massages was alright but I can't honestly say there were as great as I hoped but I guess you get what you pay for.

The next day we wanted to rent electric bikes and go up to XingPing, a small town up the Li River, but we found that they have a limited rangebecause they are electric- so we decided to take a bus there instead. At XingPing we were disappointed to find no place to rent electric bikes, so we rented regular bikes and biked around some beautiful scenery, small towns, bigger rice paddy fields, and the like- a bit different from the other day but not entirely- it was really nice- and, once again, we biked until we tired, and took a raft back down the river to XingPing, a bus back to town and spent the rest of the night quietly- unfortunately the night scene is not much for foreigners, it seems that most go to sleep early- the night scene is mostly chinese clubs where white man stands out.

The next day was our last day, we had a few hours before leaving for Guilin and then to Shanghai- so we decided to rent electric bikes- the first thing I said when I got on was "my mom would kill me if she knew I was doing this". it just fits into the categories of things told about in retrospect. We spent about two and ahalf hours just riding around the city and then outskirts- it was really really fun. It was a great way to travel, they did not go too fast, but faster than bikes and took less energy but not as scary as motorcycles.
From there we hopped on a bus to Guilin and- with the luck that we gained somewhere in the stars- were able to upgrade our seats to hardsleep for the 25 hour train ride to Shanghai.

The ride was pretty nice- overall uneventful- we slept, ate, read, talked- in the morning I spend a while talking with a 13 year old who spoke english well- which was fun (he likes chocolate but it makes him fat). and the entire car listened in on the conversation= it was alot like the scene in Wedding Singer when Adam Sandler is telling Billy Idol about his girl problems and the whole plane is listening.

Here I am in Shanghai, it is unbearably hot and here I'll end it because there are people waiting for me to finish- I can feel their eyes burning holes in the back of my head.

~mark

---

Photos

Lassie?
Here boy.... here.... boy....

Sweet Ride
we rode electric motor bikes. my ride is p-i-m-p