Cycling, Climbing and More Cooking!
Trip Start
Sep 08, 2007
1
62
68
Trip End
Apr 30, 2008
Yangshuo,
China
Friday, March 28, 2008
We took the night train from Shenzhen, which is on the China side just across from Hong Kong, to Yangshuo, a town (well 'town' of like 400,000 people) that lies along the Li River and has some of the most impressive cliffs I've ever seen! The jagged teeth of limestone rise up all over the place, and gives the entire town this awesome, pre-historic feel to it. The town centre is quite small, with a few main streets and is very heavily geared to tourists. So there was lots of english, lots of western food (although I stuck fairly well to local dishes) and lots and lots of tourists. But we had a really cute guesthouse and were quite comfortable.
On our first day there (still a little groggy from the overnight train ride - which was actually pretty comfortable for a "hard sleeper" - 6 beds in one cabin-like area with no door), Liz, Scott and I signed up for the cooking course at one of the local restaurants and made Gung Pao Chicken (sp?), Sweet and Sour Pork, and a local dish that involved stuffing green peppers with pork and veggies - ALL of them were fantastic and definitely easy to reproduce, so I will try and show off my new culinary skills (Thai and Chinese) to those who will risk it! We spent the rest of that night chilling with a few beers and enjoying the relaxed atmosphere.
And yes, I did not lie, *I* cycled! The next day, we did this day long bike trek in the areas surrounding the town and got to see even more amazing sites than I thought we'd get to see in China! It was just incredible how green it all was, and how peaceful! We biked for about 3.5-4 hours until we got to a place called the "Moon Gate", which was a naturally formed rock with a big hole in the middle. It was a rather lengthy climb all the way to the top, but the views were just incredible, even with a little fog rolling in below. We were accompanied the WHOLE way by these REALLY old ladies who kept trying to sell us water and other drinks. Finally caving, more because I felt bad that they came ALL this way (although this must keep them in pretty good shape, or kill them rather quickly if they fall, win-win one supposes), so I bought a drink off of one of them. After many pictures, we headed back down and made our way to a local resto for lunch - our Guide once again proving invaluable in helping us select some AMAZING dishes, most local.
We biked back to Yanghsuo and cleaned ourselves up and wandered around the local markets. We settled on a place for a light dinner and then headed to a rooftop bar recommended by Liz and Scott's previous tour guide from another trip. The next day though, Liz ended up getting REALLY sick! I felt so bad for her - it was very similar to what I dealt with in Africa.
So we didn't do much that day except explore a bit more, I picked up some books and then we were off to our next destination: a town called Yichang along the Yangtze River.
