Magnolia Hotel Yangshuo

Once we have had out typical walk and breakfast, we checkout and get into the car for driving to Guilin's outskirts. We arrive in a dock full of people waiting to ride a cruise in Li river towards Yangshuo. The landscape is fantastic, with thousands of strange shaped hills on both sides of the river. The weather also is much better than in the last days, so we enjoy this 4 hour cruise very much. We have lunch on board, just a few minutes before arriving in Yangshuo, where the 20 yuan bills go...

We left the Longji rice terraces this morning. Well before that, we woke up very early, to catch the sunrise again. This time we were rewarded with a cloudless sky so that we could see the sun come up and light up the terraces. I must have about 200 hundred rice terraces photos!! We walked back down the hill after breakfast. It was obviously faster than going up but nonetheless it was a bit of work for the knees. I also took it easy so that I could take photos along the way. We then drove to ...

Got up early to see the sun rise on the Li River, with all the limestone hills. It is a scene on the 20 Yuan note. Then had breakfast at That Old Place in Xingping before going to the local travelling market. It was a busy scene. It is a local market selling everything the local farmers and townspeople need, including things like live chickens and ducks, chicks, seeds, tools and farm implements. They even had a guy selling what was likely some homemade Rice bathtub gin equivalent. People brou...

Woke up very early, leaving the hotel at 5:30 to go up in a hot air balloon around the area. It was still dark as we drove out to the site. However, it was too windy as there was a typhoon hitting HongKong, so we couldn't go up. Oh well, bad luck. We were originally going to go bike riding after the HOt air balloon but given how hot everything has been we decided that it maybe wasn't very wise. However the day was much cooler than we thought, so we probably could have gone quite comfortably. ...

Kate - Nana woke up sick in the morning. Pa, Val, Mel and Kate decided to climb Mt Fubo. We paid our 15 yuan and off we went. The mountain looked steep before we climbed it - it was an awful lot steeper when we were climbing it. (Mel found the climb easy). The steps went on forever. We did have respite occasionally with a few look outs on the way up and when we had to let people coming down the mountain pass by. We FINALLY made it to the top - the view of Guilin was worth the climb. We had v...

I got up at 7:20 and did the usual stuff . By 8 we were all ready. We walked down stairs to the foyer and it was pelting down with rain. Pa had promised a lady that we would go to her restaurant for Banana pancakes for breakfast but because of the rain we went to a little place quite close by to the hotel and had bacon, eggs, fruit, oj, and toast was yucky and the orange juice was freshly squeezed and RED. At 10am we caught a minivan/taxi down to the Li Dragon river. We crossed a little, narr...

Our arrival in Yangshuo started off with a 90 minute motocross/taxi ride from Guilin Airport. I noted that the countryside was dotted with houses that stood as shells, some without windows and in many cases missing walls along the front, but huddled inside was always a sizeable family watching TV. Yangshuo itself is a strange western enclave in the middle of otherwise rural China; I'd say its the Chinese equivalent to a Las Vegas minus the gambling. There were so many souvenir shops open till...

Now, I only have a short time to write this, but I HAVE to tell you what happened to Tim and I yesterday. There we were--we had biked three miles though a bustling city and into a remote countryside area, where we stopped and then hiked up to one of the many mountains. We spent several hours there rock climbing, and I have to tell you, I DID IT!!! It was a great personal accomplishment! After that, more mountain biking through villages, rice fields, and so much more. You just wouldn't believe...