Day 40: Yangshuo

Asia » China » Guangxi » Yangshuo
October 26th 2009

Published: October 26th 2009

We are still in yangshuo, but we are finally ready to leave tomorrow. Steph was out for two days from food poisoning, but she rallied and we made up for it. We've had 4 full days of non-sickness since then.

The first day that steph was feeling better, we purged ourselves of the room we'd been staying in and moved to a different hotel. Still owned by the same people (bamboo house #2, instead of bamboo house #1) - which was good because they are awesome. That afternoon I went rock climbing, and steph tagged along. I think I only did 5 runs, but by the end I was exhausted. I was doing a bit of indoor climbing before we went on this trip, but I don't have the endurance for outdoor climbing yet. The hardest run that I did was a 5.9+, which is not very hard, but it was long and I got worn out. Great climbing though. The limestone in yangshuo is really grippy, lots of good holds. And of course the scenery is top notch. I just need more practice so I can last for a full day of climbing.

The next day we went to Moon Hill, and then to Water Cave. We rented a tandem bike again for the trip. I wish there was some kind of meter that showed how much more effort I was putting into the peddling over stephanie. I might have to invent one when I get back. Moon hill was pretty cool - it looks just like the pictures - basically a big arch. What you can't tell from the pictures is that it is quite the hike to get up there. Lots of steps. There were all these ladies that would try to follow you with a fan for the whole hike, and sell you coke and water for ridiculous prices. After we hiked to the top and back, we went to Water Cave. You enter via a boat, which was kind of cool. The cave itself was pretty impressive too - a lot bigger than we thought. After a tour that lasted about two hours, you can get in a mud bath. It was cold, smelled a little gross, but we did it anyway. After that there is a "natural" hot spring. I have my doubts about the naturalness of it, but it felt good. By the time we got out of the caves, it was almost dark, and we BOOKED back to yangshuo on the bike.

The day after that, we rented a motor scooter. The original plan was to go swimming in the dragon bridge area, but we didn't want to deal with the traffic first off so we headed the opposite direction where there were fewer cars. After an initially stressful start getting in to traffic it went fine, and we had a really nice ride. We basically rode the reverse of the bike ride I had done one day steph was sick, although it went much faster on a motor scooter obviously. I opened the throttle up a few times on straightaways - I think we hit 60 kmph - but otherwise we went pretty slow. It was dirt roads a lot of the way. We had lunch at a small river town, right over the water, which was really nice. Not too many tourists make it out that far. By the time we made it back to yangshuo it was kind of late to swim, and we felt like we had already gotten the 100 yuan out of the motorbike so we returned it.

Let me digress for a moment. After rock climbing, steph surprised me by actually ordering chinese food when we got dinner. I think it is the second time she's eaten chinese since we've been in china. And it was right after she had gotten over food poisoning! She must be turning over a new leaf. We ate at a small cafe called Lucy's, which since then has become our regular spot. Everything is so GOOD! In 8 days we've tried quite a few restaurants around town, but lucy's never lets us down. We've eaten at least one meal per day there since then. Moving on to today...

Today we took a bus up to Yangdi so we could do the famous hike along the Li river. Supposedly the stretch of river between Yangdi and Xingping is the most beautiful part of the river. Once we started, we agreed. Friggen amazing. Steph got some good pictures, but agian, seeing is believing. The hike was supposed to last 5-6 hours (24 km) but we ended up taking a bamboo raft for most of it. The whole way the locals are asking "bamboo?? bamboo?" and finally we caved in. It was well worth it though. We probably covered 15 km, sitting back in a chair on the water, for 80 yuan (less than 12 usd). The only thing we were missing was margaritas, otherwise it was perfection. There is one part of the river that is pictured on the back of the 20 yuan note, and we tried to get in the right place to take a good picture of it, but we walked too far and we failed miserably. Oh well. Great day and a good wrap up to yangshuo.

Tomorrow we are taking a total of 4 buses to get to the Longji rice terraces (aka Dragon's Backbone). We'll stay the night, then hike between two of the towns the next day, then take a sleeper train from guilin to guangzhou. At least that is the plan as of right now.

Here's some of the highlights from the past 4 days. As always, all pictures are at .