Yangshuo
Trip Start
Sep 10, 2008
1
8
10
Trip End
Oct 02, 2008
Yangshuo,
Guangxi Zhuang,
China
Sunday, September 28, 2008
We finally made it through the gates and onto our bus to take us to Yangshuo. The bus was a further 2 hours, unfortunately it was not comfortable enough to get some more sleep! We checked into our hotel and showered and then JingJing took us on an orientation walk. That didn't take long, there are basically 4 streets that encompass all we need to know. The scenery however is something else! There are loads of Karst peaks wherever you look which gives a very surreal feeling
Yangshuo Scenery
. In the evening almost all of our group went out for our first western style food in weeks - we had pizza! First though we went to a bar that had happy hour cocktails and beers, a good start to the night! The pizza was good, probably not the best pizza we have ever had but it wasn't Chinese!The next morning we had a fairly early start to cycle to Moon Hill. First though we managed a western breakfast, I had banana and chocolate pancakes, and Bruce managed to get bacon and eggs. Smiles all round! We went to the bike rental place to get allocated bikes. There were basically two choices, an old lady bike with a basket, or a mountain bike with gears. I was pretty pleased to get one with gears! The cycling was great fun, if not a little mad. I am not sure if I have mentioned yet, but traffic in China doesn't pay the slightest bit of attention to traffic signals or rules of the road. I am sure we took our lives in our hands more than once trying to get out of central Yangshuo! Once out of Yanhsuo we cycled through some of the surrounding countryside, stopping at picturesque spots (which were also the hangouts of the ladies selling souvenirs!). We cycled to Moon Hill, which we then walked up (another 800 or so steps) for some great views of the surrounding countryside. Then it was off to a local restaurant for lunch. After a massive feed we then cycled the shorter way back to Yangshuo
The bike ride
. The afternoon was spent bargaining in the local markets, the hardest part was trying to find the cheapest place to buy somewhere - you can't just ask for the price as they give you a massively escalated price. They then expect you to start bargaining, it all got a bit annoying by the end! I did have one funny moment when I was trying to walk out of the store and the lady had me by the arm trying to get me to bargain, it took me quite a while to escape from her grasp! That night there was the option of going to Karaoke, which we declined.... Instead we went out for a few drinks and dinner with a few of the others. I won't bore you with all the food we ate, suffice to say it was all western and we loved it!The next morning was a really early start, we were going on a river cruise on a fishing vessel. We had to start really early as we are not really meant to use the fishing vessels so we had to go before the river police started. It was brilliant though! We started early enough for the river to be empty apart from our boat and the water to be glassy. The river itself was quite busy, there were a number of groups of ladies doing their laundry in the edge of the river, people on bamboo rafts pulling up fishing nets, and some cormorant fishing (the birds that locals use to fish, after tying a rope around their neck so they can't swallow their catch ) The landscape surrounding Yangshuo is surreal, really beyond explanation so we really just sat back and watched the surroundings go by
Listening to the rice wine bubbling
. Our river trip finished at a little village of which we got taken on a tour of. We then had some time to chill before our bus back to Yangshuo. As this was our last day in Yangshuo we had to shower and check out, and we then had the afternoon to kill before another overnight train. We spent the time having some lunch and dinner (making the most of the western food!) and doing any last minute shopping. Bruce also managed to get a haircut. Our train was at 9.50pm so once on board we pretty much went straight to sleep. Bruce and I were in a cabin with JingJing and 3 others. One of the others was a student learning to teach English so I had a very good chat with her, including showing her my photos of NZ and London. It was the first time we had been able to get into these sorts of conversations so was very interesting. 
