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Published: December 24th 2008
Doing some yoga
Yue Liang Shan (Moon Mountain), Around YangshuoA Landscape that Inspires Poetry
Guangxi, Southern China is a region that I have longed to visit for nearly as long as I can remember. It offers a traditional, rural setting, where dramatic mist shrouded cliffs rise up from the rice paddies, and poor farmers tend to the land and fish in the river as they have done for thousands of years. The Li river is the gateway to the region, and the cruise from Guilin, the provincial capital, to Yangshuo, the tourist mecca, is a journey that has inspired travelers and poets for thousands of years.
So how lucky was I to find myself living in the neighboring province of Guangdong! When my year of teaching ended short, one of the first things I did before I had to leave was to make a rushed weekend trip to Guangxi province.
My journey started with a night train from Shenzhen to Guilin, calling in sometime in the early hours of the morning. It was raining when I arrived, but I still opted for the slower and more expensive
River Cruise down the Li Li River Cruise
Famous Southern Landscapes spoken of in ancient Chinese poetry River to get to my destination, Yangshuo.
There was nothing traditional about the river cruise. They packed at least 100 Chinese people (and one Nick) onto a relatively small sized boat, with karaoke, drinks, and tourist information over loudspeakers. They served a set meal which included, among other things,
mini Li River crabs meant to be eaten whole.
The journey was beautiful nevertheless. The skies were hazy and cloudy, which is the norm in China. But the dramatic scenery was undeniably beautiful. No wonder they put a scene from this river on one of the Chinese dollar bills (20 Yuan). Vertical columns and conical mountains rise to the skies in all directions, and fishermen ply the river in little wooden boats, throwing huge nets into the waters.
We arrived after several hours to
Yangshuo with a mighty tourist scene, a huge outdoor market with stalls of tourist junk to lure the arriving passengers, and an old man with some sort of vulture to pose in pictures for money.
The main tourist strip of Yangshuo,
Xi Jie (Western Street, but also referred to as
Foreigner's Street), is actually a very pleasant place to be. It is traffic
free and all of the exquisite old buildings are restored and house various cafes, shops and tourist hotels. And it only takes a short walk to get into the 'real' part of Yangshuo, which is no different then your average small Chinese town, except for the massive vertical mountains forming the backdrop to the town (and in some places rising right in the middle of town).
I explored the
Local Farmer's Market where all sort of creatures and critters were for sale, and also sampled the most popular regional dish,
Pijiu Yu (Beer Fish).
The real highlight to any visit to Yangshuo is going for a
bicycle trip through the rice fields and small villages surrounding the city. I was told before that this would be one of my highlights of visiting China, and it truly was. Old ways of life and farming persist, and at every turn you encounter beautiful vistas of mountains and rice paddies.
The first thing I did was cycle to
Yue Liang Shan (Moon Mountain), with an enormous moon shaped whole in the peak of the summit, which you can hike to, sit inside, and peer at the spectacular panorama of the
surrounding region. I built up a full body sweat hiking up, and got quite a sunburn too, but I will never in my life forget that incredible view.
Next I cycled down the
Yulong River, an offshoot, and some argue more beautiful version of the Li River. I cycled along dirt paths through traditional stone walled villages, past oxen bathing in mud pits, and truly inspiring rural scenery. Ultimately the sun got the best of me, and I had to buy a big hat to prevent further sunburn, and turn back to the city.
My next destination was
Longji Titian, the Dragon's Backbone Rice Terraces. This is a tribal region, where the mountainsides have been carved out into spectacular terraces, the result being a series of visually incredible valleys dotted with tiny traditional villages, offering the visitor some ultra picturesque trekking opportunities along paths through the rice fields. You may or may not have heard of it, but this quite possibly ranks as my most incredible experience in Southern China.
As I was waiting at the highway turn-off for a bus into the area, I encountered a girl from the
Yao Tribe, and in my broken Chinese
managed to ascertain that she was heading into the area, and knew of a good local homestay where I could spend the night. We were then picked up my a group of people in a car, and over the next few hours I came to learn that they were professional photographers from Guangzhou, and they were staying in the same guesthouse as me in order to photograph the rice terraces in the area.
We arrived to the
Yao village of Dazhai in drizzling rain, and were met at the side of the road by a group of Yao women waiting to help carry supplies up for money. The village itself is at the base of an incredible terraced valley, and the inhabitants walk every day up to the suspended fields to tend the crops. As we entered the village we encountered a group of Yao women in the creek washing their
super long hair that they are well known for.
We walked up some paths to the
Yao Homestay where I spent the night. There was no indication from the outside that it was a hotel of sorts, but it actually came equipped with hot showers, a comfortable
warm bedroom with the most incredible view of the valley, and a wonderful patio where I spent the rest of the day reading, drinking tea with the Chinese photographers, and taking pictures of the surrounding area. At night the family made dinner for us and served us
homemade rice wine.
The mother of the family was dressed in traditional Yao clothing, and (for a small fee) she unraveled her enormous hair bun to let me photograph her long hair.
The next morning, still drizzling rain, I set out up the valley to hike over a pass and to another village. I got
massively lost for well over an hour, but as a result I got to take in some spectacular views and get some great pictures. There were few people to be seen in the area, so I was happy to come across the very occasional local farmer and get some directions.
Eventually I arrived to a spectacular lookout over the
Zhuang Tribe village of Ping An. the most popular base for visitors and trekkers in the region. It is a picturesque village with many local homestays and hotels (that actually have signs), but I still found
Dazhai more picturesque and untouched by tourism. At the base I just barely caught the last local bus (thanks to having gotten lost for so long) back to the highway and then on to the big city.
I arrived back to the capital city
Guilin with a few hours to spare before my overnight train back to Shenzhen. Guilin is extremely famous as a base for visiting the local region and sees many tourists, though many find it has become to large, congested, and polluted, like any medium sized Chinese city, and I certainly agree, which is why I didn't really spend any of my valuable time there.
But I did have time to try out an extremely popular local restaurant called Shengfa Fandian, which specialized in the most famous regional dish,
Pijiu Yu (Beer Fish) and they do up a huge meal of it for a mere 18Y ($2.5). The fish is cooked in a propane fueled pot at your table, with pools of beer, slices of tomato, green onion, tofu, and a basket of noodles to soak up the juice afterwards, and of course more beers on the side.
But the best thing about the
Pijiu Yu (Beer Fish)
Guilin's Regional Specialty, Fish cooked in beer, with noodles, tomatoes, green onions, and tofu restaurant, aside from the delicious food, is the atmosphere. Imagine two rustic floors, completely packed with
hundreds of Chinese people, all shouting, burping, spitting, smoking, pounding beers, cheering, standing up to ganbei ('cheers' in Chinese, literally means 'empty glass'😉, singing, throwing garbage on the floor, knocking over bottles, screaming for service, and all the while dozens of young waitresses run around trying to do a million things at once.
Like many Chinese restaurants, they are so busy they simply do not have time to clean things up, so they
just brush garbage onto the floor and clean it at the end of the night. You can see this all over China, and anybody who has visited will know what I am talking about, but I have never seen restaurant chaos to the degree that I did in this one. A true Chinese experience!
For more of my photos, or to buy my book, please visit www.nickkembel.com
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NYCkid
non-member comment
so beautiful
China is so beautiful...I wanna go there.