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Wow! Yangshuo has been an amazing introduction to China. It's worth googling the name to see how incredible the scenery is. The town is a tourist destination for Chinese nationals so there is a booming industry with loads of activities, landmarks, restaurants and nightlife.
The trip to Yangshuo from Hong Kong began by meeting the tour group at 7am in a hostel in Hong Kong the day after the previous blog left off. Jet lag had fully hit by this point and I had been up since 3am after only 3 hours sleep.
There are five of us in the tour group including Tom and Tom who have now been nicknamed Barry and Paul after the Chuckle brothers. Barry is from Australia and Paul from the UK. There's Becky a PE teacher from the UK and Trevor from the US. I think I'm right in saying that everyone except me is 24 so being a couple of years older than the rest I've already been called gramps a few times and which is great... Couldn't be happier with the group I'm with and we've all settled in and found our feet pretty quickly.
We left Hong Kong on Sunday to head North on the bullet train, a journey that only took 3 hours to arrive at Guilin. Our transfer to Yangshuo was then 2 hour minibus on the bumpiest road I've ever seen, in a vehicle without suspension, whilst needing a wee. It wasn't much fun.
When the sun rose the next day, the view was incredible. If you haven't already googled Yangshuo do it now, or even better, book a trip to see it, you wouldn't be disappointed!
We had a range of optional activities to keep us busy throughout the week. Our first was bamboo rafting which we cycled 40 minutes to get to. Im still unsure how we made it through the cycle as there don't seem to be any traffic laws but it seems to work well as everyone winds around everyone else and no one seems to have priority. Once on the Yulong river, we split into pairs and were chauffeured downstream. The captain of our raft was a great laugh and we were pretty sure he'd been on the beers all day and wanted us to buy him more. He let me have a go at driving the raft which is carried out like punting by using a pole on the bottom of the riverbed to push the raft along.
In the evening we went to experience the traditional practice of hot cups where flammable liquid is ignited in a bamboo cup and immediately placed onto the skin. This creates a vacuum and it is said pulls the toxins to the surface. The effect is similar to a love bite and leaves a purple bruise on the skin, my back is now full of them but will fade in a couple of weeks. We think they look like bad tattoos, was pretty uncomfortable at the time and haven't necessarily felt a benefit but I'm glad I experienced it.
The Li river runs through Yangshuo and the area is also very popular for rock climbing. One morning we went deep water soloing where we climbed up rocks to jump into the river beneath. We also went kayaking one morning which was a good hangover cure after a late night the night before.
A trek up moon hill in the afternoon following the deep water solo allowed us to get an amazing view of the surrounding area but only after climbing the 800 steps to the top. We then descended to visit the water Buddha cave which is an attraction built into the caves by an British man in the 90s, it was basically Wooky hole on acid and also included mud baths and hot springs. At one point in the mud baths it felt like we were the attraction as guided tour groups of Chinese tourists made sure to take photos of us playing in the mud as they went past.
One evening we went to see the Cormorant fishing which I think is incredible. The fisherman train the birds from birth to catch the fish and return to the boat to put them into a basket. Tying their necks ensures that they do not swallow the fish but they are allowed to eat one fish in every seven they catch to keep them happy. We followed alongside the fishing raft as the birds went about diving under the water and returning with fish moments later.
The food so far has been amazing. We struggled during our first morning to decide upon breakfast having assumed that a full English may be difficult to come by. We attempted to order plain noodles which came out not so plain but tasted amazing. Since then we have located the bakery and have filled up each morning on the savoury/sweet hybrid snacks on offer. The street food that we have tried has also been amazing. One evening our Yangshuo guide Mike and his girlfriend Charlie took us to a street food restaurant for a stir fry where you fill up a bowl with all the ingredients you want and choose the level of spice and they cook it for you while you wait drinking a beer.
The nightlife in Yangshuo was unexpectedly great! I had a preconception that Chinese nightlife may be hard to come by but the range of bars and clubs on offer was huge. On our first night we were taken to Monkey Janes which is a hostel roof bar complete with beer pong table, rice based alcohol in a jar with a snake and some great staff always keen for a game of beer pong. Mojos across the road was also hive of activity and had all the bar sports you could wish for on offer. Most nights we opted mainly for dice taught to us by our guide and was an effective game to keep the drinks flowing and learn numbers in Mandarin.
By far the best activity we carried out was Sally's village. Sally is the second of the two guides based in Yangshuo as well as Mike. Sally grew up on a farm roughly a half hour drive from Yangshuo and we were lucky enough to be able to visit the area, meet her family and eat at her parents house. Her family was really accommodating and the food they prepared was amazing. Sally also has two young nieces of primary school age who were keen to stay with the group as we wandered round the village and challenge us to stick sword fights and grass throwing. It was our first proper experience to interact with the locals and one I'll never forget.
The one thing that is really fun is how much of a novelty the group is to the locals. Some people here have rarely seen anyone from the west and are very intrigued. We have been stopped many times for photos with people and can often see others secretly taking photos of us on their phones. Everyone is also very welcoming and will often go out of the way to help.
We left Yangshuo this morning and after another journey back over the same potholed road. The journey was made a bit more comfortable by being on a coach with working suspension and a Jackie Chan movie. However the seats were designed on an average height about a foot shorter than mine so I had no where to put my head to grab some sleep on the way to Guilin, I'm assuming this will be the trend in Asia. We then caught the early afternoon night train to Chengdu from Guilin.
I am currently now writing this from my sleeper cabin at 11pm. I seem to have drawn the short straw and have a heavy snorer in the bed beneath. Killing time this afternoon was fun and we have met loads of Chinese people on the train keen to talk, take photos and exchange gifts (usually coins or food). The train is a 25 hour journey and we'll arrive tomorrow afternoon in Chengdu raring to see the pandas that the area is especially famous for.
Running miles count - 0 miles.
Beard status - scraggy.
:)
Max.
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