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Published: April 26th 2006
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Arriving by boat into Yangshuo, we were met by a local travel agent - Kevin - who led Richard, Jill and I to a brand new beautiful hotel located on the river. We were able to negotiate a good price as it was still low season. Don't have a name as it was a true Chinese hotel catering to Chinese tourists.
It was still raining so we explored the old town of the city, got some dumplings and noodle soup and then crashed in the evening for the night. The beds were very comfortable - it might have well been a Westin Heavenly Bed (in reality, far from it, but everything is relative at this point). For the next few days, we were the most active we have been throughout the whole trip. The scenery around Yangshuo is made up of dramatic and vertical limestone outcroppings (though not so dramatic during the rain). Our first full day, a group of five of us took a full day trip including a bike ride, bamboo raft and cave excursion (Moon Water Cave). Biking was nice, bamboo raft was also nice but I expect it's much better on a dry and warm day
On the bridge
There's some significance to the bridge but we couldn't understand what Kevin was saying and the cave I could have done without. Lots of crawling through tight spots - I don't think this is a preferred activity for someone who's over 6 foot. It did include a nice lunch (the speciality around here is Beer Fish - a whole fish cooked in beer) but only problem was the constant rain throughout the day. It was nonetheless a worthwhile day and best of all it gave us an idea of the roads and town surrounding Yangshuo - meaning that we biked for our next three days to explore the surrounding areas.
Our second and third days we enjoyed dry weather. Both days we rented our mountain bikes and explored the small towns surrounding this city. Most of the riding is fairly easy but you do feel the soreness after one day so three days on a bike was a struggle. The next day we got lucky again with the weather so I decided to try rock climbing (speaking of a struggle). It was hard and I was reminded of how out of shape I am, but I loved it. Although I felt safe and enjoyed my day, I didn't learn many climbing skills; which
Bicycle Ride
This is an over the head shot isn't surprising considering my guide knew about seven words in English and none of them had to do with climbing. Jill rented her bike and took a ride to the mountain to meet me and take some pictures. (Disclaimer: my climbing isn't as pretty as the pictures would have you believe.) This town is a climbing center, for the serious, as there are unlimited rocks to climb. I met quite a few foreigners who spend their 2 week or 1 month vacation in Yangshuo only to climb.
On our final day in Yangshuo, the rains resumed. We decided to make it our last full day and move on to better weather. Our activity for the day was to rent scooters and do some final exploring. But, as I said, it was raining. Actually, I think the day started out dry but got bad fairly quickly. We were able to find covered ground for a while and then were invited to wait it out in a local man's house - this was at our farthest point from town. Richard, Jill and I made the decision to head back as we had purchased big ponchos to shield us. So we headed
back in the rain which probably would have been fine had we not been riding battery powered scooters. About halfway back, Richard's (it was Richard, Jill and I) bike was losing steam and shortly after, my bike was low on juice. Jill barely made it the whole way back to the city but Richard and I were pedaling our bikes like you would on a skateboard to keep our momentum - in the rain. I'm all for conserving the environment (and I was completely surprised by the Chinese seriousness about not relying on gasoline) but next time, if I'm choosing between the bicycle and a battery powered scooter, I'm going old-school.
Food options in Yangshuo were solid especially for the American style breakfasts. And I'm becoming a big fan of the baked beans on toast. Dinners ran the gamut but we tried to stick to the local restaurants which has always proved to be cheaper and better. And beers are the cheapest we've seen (includes India and Thailand) -they're about $.40 for a 12 oz.
Another memorable aspect of Yangshuo was the daily arrival of the tour groups. Masses (I'm talking hundreds and hundreds) of Chinese tourists in
matching yellow (or pink) hats following the flag or umbrella carrying leader appeared around noon and were gone by the next day. This parade is very noticable in Yangshuo old town as it's only one street - all the more reason to plan daytime activities during that time.
In retrospect, our 6 nights (we had only planned 3) in Yangshuo was our favorite stop in China. The acommodation/food was great and the local people in this province (includes Guilin) are the friendliest we met in China.
Also, included a couple of Richards photos in the blog but go to this link to see additional pictures. Richard has included a page of pictures of the Cysners for perusal - just click on the picture and the next photo will come up. There are alot of great pictures.
http://www.astrochew.com/asia/cysner/
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