Rivers, Yangshuo, and Deadly Water Buffalos

---

I never thought blogging would be so much fun. It's like public masturbation at its best. That is why I write.

So, I strongly suggest anyone who visits China to stop by Yangshuo. This was by far my favorite part of the tour, which is why I didn't want to skip through it like I did with all the other cities we've visited. I believe the best way to reach the town is by flying in to Guilin, which is a little upstream on the Li river from Yangshuo, and take the epic river cruise down to the cozy and friendly town. That is what we did.

When we arrived at Guilin, the weather was horrible, as it was during most of the tour. However, we were told that this was actually a good thing, because we would be able to see the Li river in its true glory. This was definitely true. The fog was trapped by the magnificent mountain landscape, and produced an image that was more or less identical to that generic Chinese painting of mountains that you imagine in your head. Actually, you don't even have to imagine it because the section of the Li river we went down is printed on one of the Yuan notes (I think it's on the 20...). Basically, the Li river is kind of a big deal in China and you just have to check it out.

Yungshuo emerged along the shore of the river quite suddenly. I'm kind of thinking Jurassic Park when they first see the dinosaurs... but it's a town instead of a T-Rex. I hope you catch my drift. The town is small, but lively. Inevitably a lot of tourists are drawn there because of the sights and I guess that also brings along a lot of chinese students that are studying english so that they can practice on the real deal. I think a lot of the guys were thrown off by groups of 18 year-old girls coming up to them for a conversation. I also think that there was a huge gap between the perceptions on where this was all going amongst the two groups, inevitably ending in disappointment for the guys. Also, there were a lot of great bars in town. I found myself taking a heavy dose of chinese rice wine and somehow waking up finding myself on the guitar at a reggae club rocking out with other players... It was sort of weird.

Anyway, the overall mix of people, climate, geography, pretty much everything comes together here and makes it a very relaxing place to stay. It was a great break from the chaos that is urban China. We even got to go a little more rural on our bike expedition. Although I was in no cognitive state to enjoy a nice stroll through rice fields and little streams, I knew I was in a good place and got some great pictures to make sure I wasn't imagining it all. This is also where we encountered water buffaloes that flip a bitch and attack human beings when it rains.

So you can probably see it was just an amazing place to be. The tour after Yungshuo followed its itinerary through Shanghai, and then Hong Kong where we probably played our dirtiest game to barely draw with Hong Kong 'A'. I think they were pissed off. Here's a link to the match report written by the Hong Kong Rugby Union.

http://www.hkrugby.com/hkrugby/news/news-room.cfm?news_uuid=5459486A-E983-2A8E-5A08-D531822E6F86&newsDisplayMethod=article

I'm not going to go into any detail about the rest of the tour though. No particular reason. I'm just lazy.

---

Photos

Li River
This says it all.

Yungshuo from the River
With the music from Jurassic Park

Flute Guy
He was rocking out some tunes to welcome us. He may have had the ulterior motive to sell us some flutes though. Just maybe.

Reggae
I honestly thought it was packed... Apparently not.