Day 35: Yangshuo

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We just are into our 4th full day in yangshuo. The first two were awesome. unfortunately two nights ago stephanie came down with food poisoning and it hasn't been too pleasant since then, but I'll start from the beginning.

We took the 18 hour hard sleeper train from kunming to guilin. This time we were on the top bunks, which are more cramped than the middle bunks, but I actually liked the top better. I'm a tall guy so my feet stick out into the aisles. In the middle bunks, people are always bumping your feet as they walk by. On the top, they are above everyones head so I wasn't bothered. Plus it's 5 yuan cheaper on top. Something to remember for the next train.

From guilin it is another 1 1/2 hours to yangshuo. By the time we got there we had been traveling for 22 hours, if you count from the time we left the hostel in kunming. But we were in pretty good spirits because the bus ride from guilin to yangshou is gorgeous, and yangshou is as good as the scenery got. It is hard to describe, once again I refer you to the pictures. It is also classified as a "karst" landscape (thanks for the definition, kari 😊 - it is like you are an ant in the stone forest. Yangshuo is pretty touristy - about on par with Lijiang or Dali. They have a KFC, a mcdonalds, lots of useless trinkets, etc. But the scenery is awesome and there is a lot to do.

On our first full day here, we rented a tandem bike and tried to find Dragon bridge. Somehow we found the right way, even though i thought we were lost the whole time. About half of the trip there was on a single track dirt path with a lot of rocks, definitely not meant for our beach cruiser tandem bike but somehow we made it. The bridge itself was pretty cool, but it was really all about the ride, along a river surrounded by karst peaks. When we got to the bridge there was a german guy that was thinking of jumping off into the river, but he wanted someone else to go first. I finished my beer and decided I was the man for the job, so I jumped off. Didn't hit bottom, so that was a plus. The german guy went next, then a local, and finally stephanie. She got the biggest cheers. Here's a link to the video of her jumping:



We ate lunch at a small restaurant where each table was floating on its own bamboo raft on the river. Pretty cool. We turned down many offers to take a bamboo raft back the way we came (180 yuan?? come on, we've got legs), and I carried the tandem bike across the bridge so we could bike back along the other side of the river. The way back didn't go as smoothly as the start.

First, we managed to get lost. We came to a point along the river where the path was blocked off by a tree branch, and some guys with bamboo rafts were there offering us rides down the river. I came to the conclusion that they had just blocked the path so that they could sucker tourists into taking the rafts, so I carried the bike over the branches and we kept going. The path kept getting smaller and smaller, until we realized we were definitely not going the right way. Instead of turning back we cut our way through the rice patties until we eventually came to the main road. I of course had the job of carrying the tandem bike through the fields, and by the end i was pretty tired and somehow covered in bike grease.

We started off again on the road (a very rocky dirt road) and it only took 5 minutes of bouncing along before we got a flat tire. Luckily a woman that we'd just passed saw it happen, and we followed her to her family's house where they had a flat repair kit. We payed 20 yuan for them to fix it, and we were on our way again. Not even 5 minutes after THAT, a chicken ran right in front of us (a common occurance) and I slammed on the brakes only to have the front brake cable snap. I missed the chicken, and I still had the rear brake. We just hoped the rear brake would last us the rest of the way. It did, and we made it back fine, but it was definitely more of an adventure than we planned.

The next day we found out about a secret path to climb the karst peak that is directly above the touristy "west street" of yangshuo. We were a little unsure on the way up, since it was just a dirt path that appeared to be only used by locals, but we made it up. The views were awesome - definitely a worthwhile hike. For dinner that night I got pan fried river snails, and I split a pizza with steph. I ate everything she did except that she put parmesian cheese on the pizza - we think that must be what did it. You'd think it would have been the river snails (delicious, by the way) but she didn't have any. By 9 pm that night she was NOT in a good place. I'll leave it up to her to blog about the details if she wants.

We have been staying at the Bamboo house hostel, which is a decent place to lay low for a few days. The people at the front desk are very friendly and speak good english, and the rooms have DVD players. They have a box of dvd's that are free to borrow, so steph can sit in bed and watch movies while she recovers. The only problem is that the dvd's are all bootlegged, and some are worse than others. Most have subtitles that do not match what is being said at all. I think they translated from english to chinese, then back again. Or in some cases just made up what is being said entirely. Some of the dvds were filmed in a theatre... so we usually have to bring up a few from downstairs before we find a good one.

Yesterday while steph was in bed I went on a 3 hour bike ride to some of the surrounding towns. I got a bit lost but it was a great ride. People in the farms were mostly very friendly, and would usually wave or say hello as I passed. I also probably watched 8 hours of bootleg dvds with steph.

Today she is feeling better, and we're hoping for a full recovery by tomorrow. There's still a lot of stuff we want to do in yangshuo before we leave: mud caves, moon hill, hike along the river, rock climbing (maybe just me) so we'll be here for a while still. We still want to see some rice terraces - I've heard dragon's back rice terraces north of giulin are the best - and then I think we're off to macau and hong kong. HK will probably be our last destination in china before we head to either thailand or vietnam (still doing the research).

Here are some of the better pictures from the last few days:

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