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typical Yangshou topology
From the top of Moon Hill. It is one of the big rocks that can be climbed using 1251 stairs. On top there is a large natural bridge ah Yangshuo
is how the
lonely planet china starts the description of Yangshou.
If I ever do a doctorate thesis in social Studies I will do it on the evolution of towns around the world from total anonymity all the way to Bali/Cancun resort towns. On my scale, which is yet to be perfected (suggestions are welcomed), Yangshuo is rated "full backpacker" status. The town is probably just likely any 300k people town in China if it were not for 2 things:
1. the views - we will let the pictures explain
2. west street. this one street is full of guest-houses, restaurants of all kinds, bars noisy or quiet and ofcoruse travel agencies. The later offer anything a traveler needs: boat trips, bicycle trips, cave trips, hot-air balloon trips, rafting, kayaking.
because of these two reasons - Yangshou was our first stop on the trip. no shortage of food and things to do in a relative "western" place. Don't misunderstand - even here people barley speak English but what was spoken was enough to get by here.
for the sights see the pictures.
we were in Yangshou during the first week of May. the
typical Yangshou topology
From the top of Moon Hill. We got there riding bicycles for over an hour in the rain. but if you thinkyou see Yaron wet here it is only because of the sweat of climbing in the heat whole week is "International Labors Day", remember the vacations we got at school on 1/5? here they get the whole week off! so 1Billion Chinese (give or take) travel. Yangshou is one of China's most popular sites so they were all here (give or take). and what to Chinese do on vacation. buy stuff. take lots of pictures in happy poses. if you think of your stereotype Japanese on vacation you get the idea. and PLEASE - if you are Japanese OR Chinese do not be offended by the comparison 😊
the only thing we still do not understand is what is so Communist about China. shopping is a big activity and there seems to be lots of competition between different shops, restaurants, travel agencies etc.
since this is our first week we are on a learning curve of how to backpack in China. We learned a lesson on the way here - don't arrive in a big town in the middle of the night without a place to sleep. We arrived via Guilin a 1.5M city 2 hr north of here. arriving in the middle of the night cost us $100 to sleep in a 4
typical Yangshou topology
From the top of Moon Hill. star hotel. 4 star is according to Chinese scale. we still needed out sandals to go to the bathroom....
People sometimes get stuck in the Yangshou area for weeks because it is so easy to get by here. but we have no point of reference so we continued on after a few days mainly because of the crowdes.
Y&H
p.s. the date on the blog represents the last day we are in a place. we post the blog a few days later when we have Internet connection so you might get more then one blog at a time...
see where we are now at: http://www.travelblog.org/gmaps/map_18P.html
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R Eldar
Rotem Eldar
Nostalgy...
If you continue like that I'll go back to China instead of traveling in new countries... Kepp on enjoying... R.