China again, only this time down south.

  Guilin, China
Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Yangshou the beautiful

China more but not of the same thing.
Each new place I go to is like going to a new and different country and its still China. The people the language the country side and the heat every thing is completely different.
Here in Yangshuo it is HOT and HUMID, sometimes so much so that it is definitely quite unpleasant going out midday and often in the evening the heat persists. Then suddenly we get a downpour which may last a few moments which it doesn't help at all, just raises the humidity but if it lasts longer than it can cool the air down quite a few degrees.
This town is loaded with foreigners Yanks, Brits, Italians, French you name them they are all here and they all congregate in West Street, where all the souvenir shops are and of course the restaurants, all tending to their various needs.
The day before yesterday spent the morning floating down one of the rivers flowing around this town on motor less raft, it was simply idyllic that is until it started to become hot but by then we had reached the end.
Not only in the streets but even on the water there is someone trying to rip you off. We have become quite adept at turning people away from us with their "buy this or travel with us" and what ever their spiel is . There are also those who would just like to practice English on us, but often even this is a trap of some kind. They are a very enterprising people these Chinese.


Yesterday went in an all day trip to a place called Longji Terraces it is a very hilly area with rice terraces all over the place, it is a very beautiful place. In the valley down below there is an ethnic minority, I forgot their name, where the women have the longest hair in the world, its in the Guinness book of records, so they say. It was a very long day. When you look at the maps one place doesn't look far from the other but in actual fact China is enormous and what may seem like one place is next to another may be a whole days journey. Needless to say we got back shattered. Today we took off for a bit of a rest. We have just finished our evening meal spent in a restaurant jutting out above the Li River, the food was good and the view idyllic. Altogether the whole area of Guilin and Yangshou is like one big fairy land a place where many of Chinas most famous poets have written about and lauded the beauty and tranquility of the area. The towering hills jutting up all over the place straight up out of the plain with rivers and streams flowing every where. We took two raft trips down the rivers in the area and the experience was so calming and layed back, the weather was ideal the panoramas at every turn of the head were so astounding. At one point I stripped off and went for a swim an experience that to the feeling of being at home with nature.
After Yangshou we took a plane to Kunming, another story.
Ron