Cycling alongside rock formations, Li River and 20 RMB Note view

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We made it again to Guilin and we already knew where to go to look for further transport. We went to the same sales women as before (who was acting like a ticket office for local buses) and we got tickets for the next bus (18Y/1,8£). Buses are leaving every 10 min so there is no rush at all. In the end Yangshuo is one of the most popular destinations served by Guilin bus companies. Unfortunately weather did not improve and it was still pouring down with rain ;-( We were really tired after our 'Dazai adventure'and we just wanted to get to Yangshuo and rest. We agreed that is we found a guesthouse with nice warm rooms and 24h hot water we would stay for longer just to simply rest. The scenery around Guilin is superb so it just seemed like a very good idea.

We got to the town and started walking towards the guesthouse we found in the LP. It was supposed to be the place to stay for backpackers – Monkey Jane party place;-) Of course we did not count on any partying in the winter season as the number of travellers we met daily was sometimes limited to none. We loved Yanshou just by looking at it. Lovely little alleys with cute Chinese style houses fused with amazing rock formations of the province. Incredible how the natural landscape of Guangxi gives this place such charm. Monkey Jane is located just in the hart of Yangshuo with the main shopping street just when you walk out of the door really. As much as we loved looks of the town we did not like the tourist feel of it. It all shouted expensive!!! Trendy shops, expensive Pizza places and night clubs were all just beyond our budget. We did not come there to party though so we quickly found our way around the expensive town and fished some nice, local restaurants with delicious food and low prices. We actually discovered few new tastes of China in Yangshuo i.e. variety of rice hotpot with meat, veg and herbs as well as eggplant hotpot topped with minced meat - delicious!!! It is always a treat when you find new specialities after nearly 2 months in the country ;-)

As our room was nice and warm we decided to stay in for the whole day and just do nothing (80Y/8£) per double room). It was nice for a change not to rush anywhere and just relax. Of course it would have been even better with some nice sunny weather outside but we could not care less. Next day we rented some bikes and we cycled around the neighbourhood to admire the landscape and rock formations. They are breath taking even in misty weather. As the map we got form our gusethouse was not the most accurate one we took a wrong turn and cycled south instead of north – east. It was ok though as getting lost in a place like that is just a pleasure! We took the opportunity and visited the Moon Hill where we had to climb for 30 min or so (around 6km from town). View over the neighbourhood was stunning. Apparently there is a lot of rock climbers coming there to get to the top of the rock but the day we visited we did not meet any. Who we met though was a very old lady (85 years old) who was selling postcards and water at the top of the hill. She had just one of those personalities that it was really difficult not to talk to her. The enthusiasm and happiness was just coming through her. She showed us her notebook full of recommendations from other travellers and she told us that she learnt English, German and a little bit of Japanese just from talking to people – amazing! She was also a collector of foreign currencies and we gave her small notes we had from India and coins from Russia. She behaved like we made her day!

On the way back to the town we stopped by the strawberries farm and purchased fresh fruit for lunch. We thought they would obviously try to charge us sky-rocketed price but we only had to pay 10Y/1£ for a whole bag of strawberries. It has been some time since we last had such a luxurious fruit so you can imagine how happy we were. We came back on the way we supposed to take in a first place and we were on the way to the nearby village of Fuli. It also lies by the Li River so we wanted to take a peek before we visit Xingping the following day. The 10 km cycling was not as easy as the other one because of the hills on the way but we made it in around an hour. We found small market and local restaurant where we could try yet another local delicacy – Guilin noodle soup. It was delicious and full of aroma and we only paid 4Y each for it. This is incredible how in small villages people are so genuine and charge you the same price as the locals. They could have easily said 10Y each and we would have not object as it was worth it but still they did otherwise. We also tried to get some train tickets in Yanshou to get to Chengdu in few days but we were told that train ticket office do not serve foreigners. Something to do with the fact that they have to register your passport number and they could not do it over there. We got really angry as we were pretty sure it would be close to impossible to get any train tickets on the same day of travel especially after being told that tickets were being sold out close to the Chinese New Year ;-( Of course we could have ask agency to do it for us but they charge 50Y each ticket – the price that would pay for our two meals so no way we would have done it. (we advise to get tickets in Guilin before coming to Yangshuo then)

We really wanted to cycle to Xingping village but we gave up after the first day of cycling. It was not about the 25km but about the hills on the way. We took a local bus instead to see the view that is printed on the 20 Yuan note. We actually counted on some trekking alongside the river but when we got there we realised that it was not as easy as we had thought. We met a couple of other travellers – Lucia from Argentina (Chinese but leaving abroad) and Elia from Greece – who were trying to find people to share a cost of a bamboo boat. Initially we said no thank you as the price for a boat was 400Y but Lucia started to negotiate in Chinese and we managed to get down to 200Y which was the correct price. In this case we did not see a reason why not as we could not really walk alongside the river. The cruise took around 2h which was plenty in the cold weather and it did really showed the landscape to us that we did not even think could be that beautiful. We were dropped in a small fishing village and we ate loads of fresh mandarins just from a tree – yummy.

We had great time with those guys and actually Lucia explained to us a lot about Chinese customs and behaviours. She was rather critical about them as she grew up in completely different culture and now she came back to China to re-discover this country by herself. Surprising all the things that have been annoying us so much were similarly experienced by her. Elia on the other hand was so positive about his time in China (with the exception of cold weather) that he had very little to add. The river was almost to our sole attention as not many boats are being hired during the winter season. Maybe the views would have been better if we had come in August but they would have been also filled with tourist boats. No regrets of course;-)

We stayed another day in Yangshuo just wandering around, tasting nice food and just enjoying ourselves. We finally managed to buy Chinese wooden mask to our collection and we have been looking for it for so long. We kind of gave up and sent other souvenirs home from Hong Kong and here we found it. Beautiful wooden young Confucius style mask – love it. Of course there is way more to do in Yanshuo than what we did and we could have gone to see some caves and had mud baths etc. but somehow we just wanted to focus on scenery and landscape of this remarkable place.

When we got to Guilin in the morning we rushed to the ticket office hoping that we still had a chance to get some tickets for the overnight train. Unfortunately all the train tickets to Chengdu were sold out 5 days ahead!!! Chinese Happy New Year excuse was thrown at us again. After Chengdu we were planning to go to Kunming so we randomly asked about it. We got them! They were available so in just short 5 min when standing there we adjusted our plan and sadly decided to skip Sichuan and finish our Chinese tour in Yunnan. We wanted to see Pandas in Chengdu but even more we wanted to leave China before the Chinese 'Happy' New Year. It already seemed like less fun than we initially thought.

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Photos

20 Yuan Note view behind us
not exactly as amazing as in summer time but still great;-)

Comments

[TinNiE]

:)
lovely photos (=^_^=)

[Susurros somnolientos]

Excellent read & absolutely love your pictures. Keep up the good work, I'm interested to see where you're going after China. Cheers, Jens

[Dancing Dave]

XIN NIAN KWAI LE
Happy Chinese New Year...sounds like you will have a ripper...Guanxi...then Yunnan...can't do better. Hope you make Lijiang.