Guilin and Yangshou

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Today I am sitting in my warm hostel bed writing this blog post because it is pouring rain outside, and looks like it will probably continue for the rest of the day. The rain doesn't particularly ruin any of my plans for the day- because there is nothing in particular to do in Yangshuo. Yangshuo is a small town outside of Guilin, famous for it's strange karst mountains along the Li River. It is also famous for it's Western Tourists, which have transformed the town from a regular ugly farming town to a beautiful and quirky tourist town. The scenery draws the Western tourists and the Western tourists draw the Chinese students, who come here to practice their English.

Our first night, as John and I were walking around trying to find an affordable restaurant to eat at we were approached by three young Chinese people asking us to come to dinner with them and their friends. We were initially skeptical, because this is exactly how all the tourist scams in Shanghai and Beijing start- and then they end with a 2,000RMB ($300) bill and some big Chinese people screaming at you, but decided to go with them- since they passed my "evil eye test" that I picked up in Morocco, and we were both wearing tennis shoes and reckoned we could out run them if it came to that. It didn't. It turned out that the group was funded primarily by one man named Listen who, from what I gathered, is a very rich business man in his mid-30s who had a mid-life crisis and decided to take a few years off to learn English and live a healthier lifestyle. He accomplished this by hiring 2 Chinese girls to be English tutors- Shine and Isabella, to come with him to Yangshuo to pick up Western tourists to practice on. He also brought his honorary brother and his girlfriend and her friend, and two elderly restaurant owners who live near him and cook all his meals. So we were the lucky lab rats and the evenings entertainment, and were treated to an enormous meal (Chinese people Eat. So. Much.) and a bottle of French wine at a nice bar afterwards. I feel we were a worthwhile investment.

Since we've been here, we mostly just wander around the countryside outside Yangshuo. One day we rented bikes with the hope of riding down the river to a 600 year old bridge about 6 miles away. After getting lost about a million times, and then being guided by a very nice Chinese woman we finally found it. Their are no roads in this area, only little paths between the mountains and rice paddies. Yesterday we walked South of town bound for a town called Fuli about 7 miles away. We didn't make it, but had fun watching the Chinese peasants planting their gardens and rice paddies, leading around water buffaloes, and watching out for protective roosters. We found a little restaurant by the river bank and had braised eggplant and beers and watched the tourists float by on bamboo rafts. In the evening we went to a place called Monkey Janes Rooftop Bar and chatted with some Chinese tourists and a very crazy Irishman.

Tomorrow we head back to Guilin, and then after a trip to visit the famous Longji Rice Terraces, we head on to Nanning.

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Photos

Water buffaloes!
We were walking along the river bank, and all of a sudden these water buffaloes popped out of nowhere.

Biking
I couldn't sit properly for three days after this bike trip, the roads were so rough!