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May 1 afternoon - May 4 evening: DAY 1 We were shown to our room in the new building (the new Outside Inn--
) so the rooms and facilities were awesome! Alex, one of the hotel guard-dogs, assisted in showing us to our room. He is an adorable 7-month old sausage dog. 😊
After we got some food into our stomachs, we headed out on foot to the Yulong River. We had to walk across someone's rice paddies to get to the river's edge. It was a bit tricky to get through the rice paddies because the walkways were so narrow.
We booked tickets to see the famous light show, Liu San Gie Light Show for that evening since the other evenings were already booked up or something. The show was created by the same man who directed the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. There were SO many people going to see the show that night (and they have 3 shows each night because it is just that popular!). We were asked to stand in a line and follow a guide who was holding a pole with a little lantern. There were tons of these guides, all 
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our building is the last one at the end of the path--it's the yellowish buildingwith poles and some kind of marker attached to it. There was a German family and another couple in our group. No one was really sure what was going on. But I--probably because they thought I spoke Chinese--was given a slip of paper with a number on it. I soon found out that the slip of paper was for redeeming tickets for the group. After getting the tickets, our guide disappeared. I think he had muttered some instructions in Chinese before he left. But then, we were all just standing there not knowing where to go. haha So we just followed the crowd. We had to walk for about 5-10 mins. to get to the open-air theatre, which probably seated over 2000 people. We had awesome seats in the middle of the theatre. We didn't really understand the storyline since the songs were all in Chinese, but that didn't matter. The show was amazing, with the river as their stage and karst mountains as the background. There was a striking use of colour, light, fabrics, movement, song....it was truly spectacular!
DAY 2 The next day, we rented
tandems and cycled to
Moon Hill.
Yes, I rode a bike on Outside Inn
the new building, where we stayed the streets of Yangshuo. Good thing they had tandems because I wouldn't have been able to bike on my own since I'm horrible with bicycles as some of you know. hehe A few local people helped us to navigate our way to Moon Hill and we got there in about 45 minutes. Lizzy and I fell partially into a ditch, though, because a bus was coming so close to us that we had to swerve to avoid being hit. We climbed like 800 steps to get to the top of Moon Hill--we had to take breaks along the way because it was hot and we were out of breath. At the top, we enjoyed a view of the town and our picnic lunch that we had ordered from the hotel restaurant. Then, we headed to the
Moon Water Cave. We took a little boat to enter the cave and good thing we had hard-hats because some parts of the cave were so low & all of us banged our heads a few times. The cave was amazing and our guide,
Iris, was funny. She would stop to tell us about the significance of some of the formations (ie. one was
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We stayed in the Clever Owls suite. Lizzy and I were given the kids' room. hehe. We had cute stuffed-toy frogs on our beds and there were cute pictures on the walls. supposed to be a monkey king) and would keep reminding us to be careful. She would try to make jokes, but they weren't funny---but we still laughed because it was funny that she was trying tell jokes that weren't funny. hehe. They have kept this cave quite natural and so there weren't any paved pathways and not many lights around. We used flashlights (or torches as they called them) to see our way through. We got to experience a
mud bath inside the cave. I don't do well with mud and dirt. It felt so gross to walk in the mud, but I did it. I went knee-deep...I couldn't bring myself to submerge myself into the mud. Well, I'm glad I didn't because Angela's ears were bothering her for the rest of the trip--after coming back to Shanghai, she found out she had rocks and mud in her ears, which gave her an ear infection. 😞
We also got to enjoy a natural
hot springs bath inside the cave too, which was so relaxing. 😊
That night, after we got cleaned up, we headed into town. We went to
West Street--it was totally packed! West Street is a pedestrian
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our little kitchenette fully equipped with a coffee maker, coffee & tea, cups, cutlery, mini-fridge, a safe...and a hair-dryer! street with all sorts of restaurants, vendors, shops, etc. We had dinner and then went shopping!! We lost Jabi a few times and because the street was so crowded we had to call him in order to find him.
DAY 3 We rented tandems again and cycled for a little over an hour to
Dragon Bridge. We had a little confusion about how to get there and we stopped at a crossroad. A lady approached us and motioned the way. Jabi was a bit skeptical and said we should just follow the directions that we got from the hotel. But there were a few other people who went the same way as the lady had pointed out to us, so we followed the lady. Even if the lady were leading us the wrong way, it would have been worth it. We had the privilege to cycle through villages--to see local children, to see farms, cows, chickens...to see beautiful farm fields and rice paddies....it was a wonderful experience. Anyway, we got to Dragon Bridge in a little over an hour. We were hungry and a lady guided us to a restaurant by the river; we had to walk through people's
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nice bathroom. the toilet was in a separate room & they made sure to let us know that we cannot flush toilet paper because the country-side cannot handle toilet paper. barns and some random, abadonned buildings to get to the restaurant. But we didn't end up eating anything because none of us felt like eating Chinese food.
So we just spent some time walking and enjoying the river.
Then, we hired a
bamboo rafter--they charged 80 RMB per person--and we bought some
water guns for 5 quai! 😊 They loaded our tandems onto the rafts and we set off down the river. It was a nice way to take in the scenery. We were going so slowly and it was so quiet on the river; it was so relaxing...I started to feel sleepy...
That night, we hired a taxi again to take us into town to the
River Bar. The hotel had recommended this place so we wanted to check it out. The restaurant/bar was right by the river, so we had a beautiful night view. We enjoyed some food and drinks...sat for a while talking...it was nice!
DAY 4 Our last day 😞 But at least our flight didn't leave until past 9pm. We decided to wake up early to go
rock-climbing. The hotel arranged everything for us. At first we were wondering if it would rain.
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comfy chairs For the first time since we arrived, it was cloudy and a bit cool. . We were taken by a van to a nearby village (where we had cycled to the previous day on our way to Dragon Bridge). Our rock-climbing guide's name was
Hua--not sure about the spelling. He was great and made climbing look SO easy. Of course it was not easy, especially for some of us who are inexperienced. Climbing karst mountains--something I would have never imagined doing before. I did three climbs. I think we climbed at least 3 storeys high each time. Some parts were so difficult to climb because it was hard to find a good crack to hold on to or to place your foot on. Hua would stand at the bottom coaching and guiding us:
"Lean to the right. Lean to the left. Change to your left foot. Push. Stand up! Go, go, go! So with Hua's coaching, I made it to the top each time! I loved
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mr. monkey greets us in our entryway the rock-climbing, though to be honest...part way up when it was getting very difficult to climb...I said "I hate this! Why am I doing this?". It was challenging, a bit scary and quite exhausting, but I am so glad I did it!
We had asked for a later check-out, so we had time to pack everything and shower...
Then we just hung out around the restaurant--enjoying the hammocks, eating... (mmm...I miss their milkshakes, Belgian chocolate cake, fresh fruit...)
then it was
time to go 😞 We paid our bills and our taxi came to drive us to the Guilin airport. It began to rain as we were driving to the airport; I guess Guilin & Yangshuo were sad to see us leaving. hehe
Hands down, this was the best trip in China that I've experienced so far!
Gorgeous surroundings. Great activties. Good food. Glorious weather.
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