‘Bro-Ho Yangshuo’: Where Malia meets Mountains

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Chapter 4

‘Bro-Ho Yangshuo’: Where Malia meets Mountains

The week after Mulan Shan flew over; we were all excitedly anticipating October Festival (celebrated on the first full moon of October I think). We’d been gradually booking up to travel to Yangshuo for this festival over the past few weeks, since it was the holidays we knew accommodation and train tickets would sell out fast. I don’t know if you all saw the pictures of the Great Wall at the beginning of October? These photos actually made British news and showed just how many people travel during the holidays.

It’s quite an experience booking train tickets in China, they are released 12 days before each travelling date but for holidays this changes and is 15 days (I think)… Anyway Lauren and Dave attempted to get our train tickets on the first day they were released, since it is a 15hr train journey we were hoping for sleeper tickets. Chinese trains have five classes of ticket; soft sleeper, hard sleeper, soft seat, hard seat and standing, yes, they actually charge people to stand for 15hrs… They were told there was only hard seats left available, Lauren attempted to ask how when they had only just been released but, due to the language barrier, did not get an explanation. Hard seats it was then. When they went to book the train back at the exact time the tickets were released, they was told there was only standing available, we have no idea why but it meant we ended up booking to come home a day early. We already had the hostel booked which was one good thing, it was more expensive during holiday time, working out at £10 a night instead of £4 but we booked 6-bed dorm and since there were six of us in the same room it felt more like a private than a shared room.

Diane, Sam and Michael decided to join us on the trip and Di and I went to the office to book yet more train tickets, there was none available for the 30^th of September (the date the rest of us were travelling) and after insisting that we needed ones for the 31^st of September and being told, to our disappointment, that they did not have them, we settled on the 1^st of October.

The train journey itself was a major experience. Since we had hard seats everyone with standing tickets stood around us during the journey making the train carriage cramped, hot and claustrophobic! When we first set off I shut my eyes for a few minutes until a girl sat on the floor and put her head on my knee and proceeded to fall asleep, little bit uncomfortable if I’m honest. The guy sat opposite Keyleigh and I kept spitting on the floor and people stood in every tiny bit of space available, if you leaned forward, even just for a moment, someone would be resting on the back of your chair. We did manage to see the moon from the train though, which was nice, since that was what the festival was about!

Eventually we arrived in Guilin and headed straight for a KFC breakfast then jumped on a bus down to Yangshuo. The weather was beautiful and we soon found our hostel on the ridiculously crowded pedestrian street ‘West Street’. Although it was 9.30am we had been on a train since 3pm the day before our body clocks were very askew therefore we decided that the first thing to do was have a beer and check out the view from the rooftop bar. This was beautiful, rivers and mountains and greenery! The area of Yangshuo used to be covered in water and so the mountains that surround the area are not formed in the traditional plate boundary way but are actually stacks left from the forming of caves breaking to arches and then to stacks through erosion from the water. This makes it like no other place I have ever seen before!

After a well earned rest we headed out onto West Street for food and a look around the shops. In Wuhan it’s hard to find Chinese trinkets and art works and things like that but here they were everywhere; hundreds of little shops and stalls selling bracelets, paintings, fabrics, scarves and clothes, everyone loves a bit of holiday shopping!

I wanted to head to the river for a swim and Lauren came too, it took us ages to find a good spot to go in (by this I mean one where it was physically possibly to climb in and out) and when we did find it we were incredibly wimpy about actually getting in the water, fearful of anything that brushed our legs! But, once we each grew a pair it was really nice and the locals were very pleased to see two foreigners swimming there. That night we headed for food and then to a different roof-top bar where we had a wicked game of Truth or Dare which resulted in some hilarious videos. We were, however, completely upstaged by the two boys who ran around into the bar naked from the room downstairs…

That next day we took a raft (a bamboo boat driven by a local) down the Li river, which was very beautiful but, due to the number of tourists the river was packed with boats! This was a great way to see the natural scenery of Yangshuo which we were all still mesmerized by! Michael, Sam and Diane were meant to arrive that afternoon but, due to a severely delayed train, they did not get there until late on the night so we went on a white water rafting trip. This involved a beautiful drive up into the mountains for the start of the course. We had all donned swimming clothes for the activity but after getting changed we walked to the little bus that took people to the start of the course and we were the only ones in bikinis and flip-flops, all the Chinese tourists were still fully clothed and some of the girls even had heels on. We were highly embarrassed as white people get enough stares here without walking around half naked.

We were all sat in a little dingy and made to wait about 45minutes in this tiny pool of water for what exactly I’m still not sure! But eventually they let us off down the river! It was loads of fun but more like a water park ride than actual white water rafting, but a really good laugh, especially when Dave, getting a little too clever for himself, plunged from the boat into the water. The course we went down was called Nine Horses hill and people can go to look at the hill and they have to see how many horses they can see in the rock, the more you can see, the wiser you are. Safe to say, none of us saw any… When we reached the end of the course some of the Chinese men got out of their boats and seemed to be trying to fish with their hands, like on Mulan, but none of them were successful. I felt really smug to see everyone getting out of their little boats absolutely soaked when we had nice dry clothing to put on!

That night we went for fajitas at a restaurant called Red Star, they were nice, apart from the weird soggy things they were disguising as tortilla wraps, but the meal was good and then we headed back to the bar which had a great atmosphere on a night and the staff gave everyone free shots as part of the full-moon festival! We were still waiting for Di, Sam and Michael to arrive who had managed to get off at the wrong station (Guilin North instead of Guilin) and were consequently 12 miles further from Yangshuo than they ought to have been. They were sick to the teeth of travelling and decide to barter a taxi all the way. I felt pretty bad for them as we all sat enjoying 2 for 1 on cocktails at the hostel but eventually they did arrive! And… could not find their hotel… Finally they joined us on the roof, where we had some well deserved drinks waiting for them! And when they did join us, credit to them, they hardly complained despite their horrific 27hr journey and losing one day of their holiday. So it was now we decided to spring it on them that they had to be up around 8.30am to meet for breakfast at 9am and go on an all day bike ride and hike. Later in the night we had a wander around West Street which, on a night, felt like walking down Zante Strip, loud music everywhere, too many people, PR workers trying to get you into bars and restaurants, it was crazy that this serene, beautiful place also had this wild side to it.

We had arranged the bike ride on the first day, a guide named Moby approached us and, although I am not usually one to pay attention to this, he was very sweet and what he offered wasn’t very expensive, we could have rented bikes ourselves but it would have been a miracle if we had been able to find the places he took us to! We first had to get out of the town but once we were on the country roads it was amazingly beautiful, mountain scenery and cotton fields and little streams. Then we ran into a giant Yak so some people got their photos taken it was sweltering hot and we cycled for a couple of hours before we reached the mud caves. These are a huge attraction in Yangshuo where you can bathe in mud and then jump in the hot springs to clean off (after an initial shower). Moby waited outside as we headed into the caves, in true British style, we once again found ourselves in bikinis and swimming shorts while others wore full attire! We wandered through the caves which were not that interesting until we reached the mud baths; these looked like the river off the original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and it felt strange but nice to bathe in the mud. However, even after a shower and the hot springs we still had mud all over, under clothes, in ears… A hot shower at the hostel sorted this though! Went we came out of the mud caves we headed to the lockers where we had left our clothes to change out of the muddy, wet swimwear and into dry shorts and t shirts. There wasn’t really a changing area so the only option was the toilets. Toilets in China do not have the same boundaries as toilets in the UK (you may remember my incident at school from Chapter 2 ) These toilets were cubicle squats but each squat had an entrance/exit area that had no door. I went into a corner squat to change my bottoms and at the point when I was completely naked a woman entered my squat and went to take a pee about half a foot away from me ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘but do you think this is okay?’ She looked at me and, in a shocked voice said ‘Oh, okay, I will wait.’ ‘Thanks.’ I muttered. I understand things are different here, but really? Sharing toilet cubicles? When did it come to that? I was slightly traumatized but Lauren (who was in the next cubicle and could see this exchange over the top as they are only about chest height) found it hilarious.

When we left the caves we headed for lunch at Moon Hill Café which is at the base of Moon Hill, named because an arch had formed on the top of the hill and looking up this appeared to be a moon. All ten of us were meant to climb the mountain after lunch but we were all very tired from the previous night out and the bike ride and the heat that some people decided to stay and have a beer in the café. I was sorely tempted by this but felt that while I was there I should climb the mountain so Lauren, Sam, Jess, Michael and myself set off. It didn’t look that big. We came to a fork in the path up the mountain and, since we could not read the signs, took a guess to go left. After a little bit of climbing we can to a flat level which had lovely views and a good camera shot of the ‘moon’. We were pleased with ourselves for climbing up when everyone else had stayed to drink beer and so began our descent down the path opposite, we were halfway to the bottom when we came around a different ascending route and realised we had been nowhere near the top of the mountain. Battling between our tiredness and our determination we decided to climb once more, as long as it did not take too long since it would be getting dark soon and we still had a long ride back! It was such a mission and every time we reached a level platform all we could see where more steps, that’s the tricky thing about hills and mountains, when you think you are at the top another peak seems to appear out of midair… We were all knackered and 80%!w(MISSING)anting to give up, all apart from Michael, would had the energy of a mountain goat and was running up the steps then running back down doing laps around us. We did eventually make it to the top and it was beautiful but this climb did make the bike ride back much harder.

After some rest we had food and set up for a big night out. Me, Diane and Lucy won a game of beer pong against three French girls which we were proud of (even though it was the longest game of beer pong in history and very boring by the end!) For those of you who do not know what beer pong is here is the wiki explanation:

‘Beer Pong is a drinking game in which players throw a ping pongball across a table with the intent of landing the ball in a cup of beer on the other end. The game typically consists of two two-to-four-player teams and multiple cups set up, in triangle formation, on each side’

When the ping pong ball thrown by the other team lands in the cup in front of your team a member of your team must drink the beer that is in that cup. We headed out of our hostel to another bar and when it was getting late most places were becoming quieter but there was a hostel rooftop that always looked quite busy so we wanted to head there but could not remember the way. I decided to ask someone so stopped an American tourist and asked him for directions in Chinese…oops. It was a great night anyway! People had whittled away through the night and Lauren and I returned to the hostel in the early hours of the morning assuming we were the last ones back but when we got to the dorm Jess’ bed was empty and it was at this moment that we got a phone call, one of those sobering-up phone calls. Jess was downstairs in the hotel reception and needed me to bring her passport and all her money as she needed to go to the hospital. Me and Lauren sorted everything out and headed downstairs where Jess was sat with a t shirt wrapped around a very swollen, bleeding foot. The girl who worked in the rooftop bar, Fen, was very helpful and we set out to find a motor-taxi (motorbike taxi). The streets were now deserted but we did eventually get one who agreed to take two people to the hospital and wait for them and bring them back all for 20yuan (2 quid). Dave went to the hospital with Jess, who had gone for a late night swim in the river and cut her foot on a glass bottle, where she got nine stitches.

So, Jess could not do so much the next day, half the group went kayaking, I decided to be lazy and grab a massage with the others which was very relaxing. I had a traditional Chinese massage where you have to dress in these strange little pjs and then they cover you with something that is like a towel crossed with a curtain so there is no skin on skin contact at all.

In the evening we went to see a Light Show directed by the same person who directed the Beijing Olympic opening ceremony. It was good, not quite as amazing as I’d expected but very beautiful. The only problem was the crowd. The amphitheatre was packed with 3000 people and there was a constant dull roar of chatter throughout the crowd; in England when a performance starts its common to hear a hush spread across the audience, not in China. Conversations continued loudly and it did affect the mood of the show, but that is just China I guess! And so, we came to our last night out! It was loads of fun even if it did reach the point of Diane lying on the stone floor insisting that she was too tired to make it back to her hostel! The next morning we did our shopping and headed for food before heading back. Lauren and I eventually tried the local specialty of beer fish which was very nice, although we had to pay for our little plate and bowl sets, so we took the chopsticks. .

Now, read this next part carefully as it may become confusing. The train back was more of an experience than the way there. Because of it being really busy during the holidays we all had seats in the same carriage but not next to each other. This would not really have been a bother for a shorter journey but since we wanted to get some sleep we wanted to be able to lounge across one another and put our feet up and things so we decided to ask some people to swap seats with us. Chinese people are very accommodating to this in my experience, if you show your ticket they are usually happy to go and sit in your seat and give up theirs. Since we had two seats around a six-seater area we decided this was the area to focus on and so immediately Dave swapped seats with a gentleman. Me, Di and Ria also all managed to swap seats and so we were sat together (the other four in the group were next to each other further back in the carriage). This was all fine for a while and if a new person got on the train who had the seat we would just show them tickets and they would swap. The problem came when Dave went to the food cart and a gentleman got on who had a ticket for one of the seats in the six but none of our seats seemed to be free. This is the problem when standing tickets are available as if there is a free seat people obviously want to sit down for a little bit but then you don’t know who has a ticket and who doesn’t. So, when Dave returned we had six seats and seven people but we didn’t know who was in a seat when they had a standing ticket therefore couldn’t ask them to move. We started by having a long, confusing discussion about who we had all swapped our seats with and who had gotten on and off the train since this initial swap, this didn’t really achieve anything other than perplexity. So, since Dave was the one standing at this point we started by asking the guy in his seat what number seat he was. It turns out he had been in the incorrect seat all along but was now attempting to share the seat with his wife, I still stand by that this guy and his wife only had one seat between them as he was very reluctant to show us his ticket. Anyway, the guy in Dave’s seat was actually meant to be in the seat opposite, so we asked that guy for his ticket and it turns out he was meant to be further down the carriage. It was at this point that we realised how out of our depth we were, I think nearly everyone in the whole carriage was in the wrong seats and obviously we couldn’t ask them all to move around. At this point a train guard came down and we attempted in broken Chinese with lots and lots of gestures and pointing and showing of tickets to explain the situation. There was definitely someone in the carriage in a seat when they had a standing ticket, but the problem was finding them! We had already decided that it may just be easier to move back to our original seats but we didn’t want to uproot so many people who had been kind enough to move to allow a group of friends to sit together and were now settled and mostly asleep.

The guard, however, decided that the only way to solve the problem was to get everyone to move. He asked everyone around us to get our tickets out and started by moving us back to our original seats. The people who were now in our original seats were not necessarily the people we had swapped with and resulted in half of the carriage moving around. Half the people in the carriage found our involvement in this highly amusing, the other half, highly annoying. Once we were all back in our seats we were just settling down to try and get some sleep when the train guard proceeded to begin to move everyone around again. We realised he was trying to make sure we could all sit together and was swapping everyone out of our six-seater area into our original seats. This was quite embarrassing as he had literally just moved them all back there. We were grateful but we had caused a hell of a lot of disturbance and we all wondered whether or not he would have done this for everyone. A girl nearby then asked why she could no longer sit with her boyfriend and he began to move other people around until the whole carriage seemed pretty happy but we still kept our heads down for the next few hours. What a way to kill time on a 15hr journey…

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