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Published: August 19th 2011
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Day 113 - Yangshuo After some mild (unnecessary!) panic about losing our room key we left Guilin on a local bus bound for Yangshuo, the tourist destination du jour in South China. We had instructions to get to the hostel from the bus station and we'd even arranged to be met by the hostel at the bus station, which is cool. But we weren't dropped at the bus station, we were dumped somewhere on the edge of town and had to guess the rest of the way. We found it eventually, hidden up a back alley off the main strip and settled nicely into our home for the next 11 nights.
We headed out to get our bearings walking along the riverfront, from where we realised how incredible this place is. In every direction you look the view is backed by huge limestone hills covered in trees, seemingly dropped at random on a landscape I imagine George Lucas has dreams about.
The main street, Xi Jie (West Street) is the pedestrianised area at Yangshuo's heart, crazily busy with a feel of mediterranean party island in the summer. There's a massive, maybe too much so, selection of western and
Chinese food available here too (our first curry since India went down a treat), and countless shops and stalls selling wooden frogs, rice grains with your name engraved upon it and 'Barack ObaMao' t-shirts, but this touristic stuff did not tarnish our experience of Yangshuo. If you cycle for 5 minutes out of town you're suddenly transported into a world of centuries-old villages, farmers harvesting their rice fields whilst a water buffalo bathes in a pond , cooling off from the midday heat. A family of white ducks happily paddle around him oblivious to the endless amounts of jaw-dropping scenery that is their home.
I feel really privileged to be amongst this paradisiacal land of old China. And the people of this land are so helpful; directing us when we get lost, patching up my thumb after slicing it open on the bike kickstand, and just being generally friendlier than Chin's other cities we've been living in up until now. Old China is much more fun than it's newer incarnation!! One of the tours offered by our hostel was an outdoor light and sound show just outside town. It sounded pretty good from the info we had read, directed by
the guy who created the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, so we went along hoping for a good show. It wasn't just a good show, it was the most amazing spectacle I've ever witnessed! 500 actors, some of which are local farmers and workers, on bamboo rafts and on the water's edge surrounded by illuminated karst mountains, put on a performance of intense colour and rousing, perfectly synchronised song and dance. It was so, so impressive and we didn't want it to end!
The absolute best way of seeing Yangshuo, as I've mentioned, is to get out on a bike and see it from the winding trail paths that go in all directions. It is not difficult to get lost, but when you do it really doesn't matter as it meant we got to see all the amazing scenes we'd just ridden past!! Every sweeping bend reveals more and more breath-taking vistas that left me unable to do anything but shake my head in disbelief at the panorama before me. We went for rides a few times during the 10 days we were here (in hindsight a bit many but I'd rather spend too many days here than
anywhere else I've seen in China), covering most of the surrounding villages and the glorious countryside. Our favourite day included, on a spur of the moment, a swim in the sparkling, clear blue Li River in not a lot of clothing, and miles and miles of deserted tracks (well, deserted of tourists..) And you know what, it didn't matter that we cycled the same route now and again because the views are that good that you don't even care. On one occasion we hired a motorised bamboo raft to take us and our bikes to the nearby town of Xingping, the home of the picture on the 20 yuan note. Another, amazing, way to view these magnificent limestone peaks (not the note, the boat!) Without doubt the last 2 weeks of our China tour have been more enjoyable than the first 2, and they are what I'll remember about this baffling country. We're off to Hong Kong, the home of the world's best city skyline, for some excitably anticipated home comforts at my Uncle Andy & Junaidy's apartment!
G&R
xx
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