Blogs from Yangshuo, Guangxi, China, Asia - page 15

We left Shanghai with 3 days left on our tourist visa, and headed to Buckland International's Headquarters in Yangshuo, China for teacher orientation. Buckland International is a great company: they take good care of you and you get to stay in Yangshuo for a week! Yangshuo is (so far) my favorite place in China. It is full of natural beauty and is an education hub of southern China. It is difficult to get there, but once you do, you don't want to leave. It is a backpackers paradise that has western food and night clubs. Jay and I stayed with a Chinese family and we were subjected to a curfew! If we weren't home by midnight we were locked out! We tolerated it for free lodging, plus we had training courses in the morning, so it ... read more

Day 146: Thursday, April 22nd, 2010. Yangshuo, China. Per Intrepid notes, "Arriving in Guilin early in the morning, we transfer by public bus to the small countryside town of Yangshuo (approx 1.5 hrs). 

After checking into our hotel in Yangshuo your leader will take you on an orientation walk around the town pointing out some of the things you need to know to help you get the most out of your time in here such as where to sample the best local noodles and some of the most interesting places to shop. Our hotel in Yangshuo is clean, twin-share and centrally located with laundry facilities available.

The countryside around Yangshuo is immortalised in many traditional Chinese paintings - picture immense limestone karsts dotting the rural landscape and towering spectacularly over rice paddies and the meandering Li River. ... read more

Mostly I'm just glad that all that rain held off until after we got off our boat tour of the li river. ( and you should be glad because it means I'll have plenty of time to sit in the hostel and update my blog.) To answer the question in my previous post, the karst landscapes were quite atmospheric in the mist, though they might not show up all that well in my pictures. And it was relatively nice in Guilin ( though clearly my standards of what constitutes nice have fallen, as it was quite cold) so even though it has developed enough in the past 20 or so years that I'm not sure anyone would say that they think it is the most beautiful place on earth, it still was pleasant enough. If yangshuo ... read more

Day 138: Wednesday, April 14th, 2010. Ping An (Longji Terraces) to Yangshuo, China. Per Intrepid Notes, "Days 20-22 Yangshuo Leaving the village behind us on foot, we catch a bus and travel via Longsheng and Guilin to Yangshuo (approx. 6 hours). The region around Yangshuo is probably the most well known scenic attraction in China, where the Li River winds its way around thousands of limestone karst mountains. Each peak is impressively named, in true Chinese tradition! 

We have free time to explore the shops of West Street, take a calligraphy lesson or a water painting class. Later, we take to the surrounding countryside with a local guide on bicycles, stopping at markets and picturesque villages along the way. This is a region well-worth exploring, as every turn in the road brings you to another picture-postcard ... read more

I don’t even remember what the last entry was about! It was a long time ago. The reasons for the delay are simple - it is hard to write a good blog when demoralised (lawd knows we may not succeed in this even when fully moralised) and we have been demoralised. I shall spare you the ins and outs (juicy and terrifying in equal measure) and attempt to cut a long story short. Firstly, it is the off-season. We have almost no trips running. So our normal jobs don’t exist. This means admin, paperwork, busywork and digging holes we later have to fill in (literally - the trenches we dug in Fuli are apparently wrong and are being filled in as I type this. This knowledge pains us almost as much as the actual digging did). ... read more