Ni hao!
I have just returned from an awesome few days in the other-worldly landscape of Yangshuo. China celebrates its national holiday on October 1st, but instead of just a day off like the Fourth of July, China takes a week off! So taking advantage of our last holiday for a few months we packed our bags and headed south!
It's an easy hour flight to Guilin from Chongqing, and either a 5 hour cruise down the Li River or 1 hour bus ride south to Yangshuo. Kelli (a fellow Bennie and teacher, and also my neighbor) and I decided to cruise our way down to Yangshuo. For the first half hour of our trip I believe there were more pictures taken of us than the beautiful karst mountain formations, we even had a mini photo shoot with one young woman who posed our bodies around hers in many ways, mostly prom style with us as the male figure behind her....I hope she didn't mind that I forgot my boutonniere. Anyways, once everyone had filled up their cameras with blonde hair and blue eyes we were left to enjoy the serene Chinese scenery. The cruise had a full buffet lunch and we arrived in Yangshuo with plenty of time to explore the city.
The next day Kelli and I rose early to explore the area. We booked a tour that took us to one of the many water/mud caves in the morning and kayaking in the afternoon. No one else ended up touring with that company for the day so we lucked out with a private Australian tour guide ;). The cave was AWESOME! We took a boat to get inside and then maneuvered our way under and over and around spectacular stalagmite and stalactite formations until we reached the mud pits! The cave owners had made some makeshift mud slides and we went to town! I've never made a more delicious mud pie. We rinsed off in the caves natural hot springs and lounged for a while before taking a final dip in the cool freshwater spring at the entrance to the cave. It was glorious! Our next stop was to travel a little ways down river to a quiet area where we could put our kayaks in. We loaded our kayaks, greeted the water buffalos lounging in the water, and set off! The river is fairly slow moving but is fast enough that we didn't need to paddle much. After a few hours admiring more karst formations we unloaded at a Ming dynasty fortress where our driver met us for an even more scenic drive back to Yangshuo. The beauty was endless everywhere we went.
That night some of the other teachers had arrived and we met up for dinner and some drinks! Yangshuo is fairly touristy so that means lot's of Western food! We devoured pizzas and savored every bite of cheese! Afterwards we enjoyed some local brandy....which is where this story turns dark. Literally, it got dark outside. And I broke my arm. Ok ok there's a little more than that. The hotel Kelli and I were staying at was a few kilometers outside of town so we rented bikes to get around. Well darkness plus bicycles plus curbs don't always make the best cake, so long story short I've got a pretty x-ray and I'll be in a cast for the next few weeks. But I got to do all the fun activities before my little accident so I was able to wander around the city or shop or just sit and read and admire the view for my last two days, which let me tell you, I could do forever! We'll definitely be going back to Yangshuo, and I would recommend to everyone travelling to China to try and make it down there, but easy on the brandy and bikes.... ;)
Yangshuo photos:
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