Yangshuo - night-light beauty (balance is restored)

'no kitty this is my pot pie'

It only took a brief spin down the road on the bus and we were in Yangshuo, the relaxed tourist town south of Guilin. Yangshuo is surrounded by limestone karst landscape just like Guilin, but has even more accessible cycling routes and a network of rivers to cycle along and (by bridge or boat) cross. Our arrival wasn’t completely straightforward as the hostel’s directions were terrible (it was a little out of town compared to the majority of places to stay) but once we found it we were pleased to find a quiet, friendly place with a brilliant room and fantastic bathroom. Score! 

We settled in and got stuck into a day of working, accompanied by the hostel cat. 

View from right outside the hostel.

For dinner, we popped out and walked into the outskirts of town, and found a brilliant restaurant – Gan’s Noodle Restaurant. The food was fresh, aromatic and nicely spicy, and Gan and his wife were really friendly and helpful. We’d be back over the next few days!

All this working must be tiring, as the next day we slept in massively (must have been the genuinely comfy bed – a nice change from all the flat mattresses out here). Despite the late start, we hired some bikes for the afternoon, and cycled into town to explore Yangshuo properly.

It’s a fairly predictable tourist town – plenty of bars, cafes and souvenir stalls through the main streets, but the riverbank is a charming ride and the backstreets have lots of shady routes you can shelter from the sun in. We made a quick stop to ask for directions for a short country bike ride, where we were given some free fruit to try (yum! Thank you YHA!), and before the afternoon wore down much further we cycled out and did a brief local loop past some rice fields, then headed back to the hostel with some beers and enjoyed the sunset. Soon enough, our tummies started rumbling so we headed back to Gan’s for dinner!

One of the highlights of the Guangxi province, and all of China in fact, is the Li River, and this is best experienced by boat. There are several different boat trips you can take, and start/finish points you can choose, but it seems to be universally acknowledged that the most beautiful section of the river lies between Yangdi and Xingping. 

We arrived at the bus station and immediately boarded a bus about to leave for Yangdi (which is close to Guilin, so it seemed an odd journey, to be going back so soon!). Yangdi is little more than a drop off point for the Li River boats, so there was nothing to do except head down to the river and organise a boat. This proved a little more tricky than we’d hoped – even the ticket office seemed to be part of some scam to overcharge tourists (we’d done our homework on prices before we left) but we finally managed to haggle what seemed a fair price for a bamboo raft down to Xingping.

Well – they call them bamboo rafts, but they are more                                                        bamboo-esque rafts, made of sturdier stuff than bamboo!

It was a peaceful way to travel, and we had a raft to ourselves (plus the driver) so it felt quite luxurious. The journey was an hour and a half, and the scenery was stunning, with forested limestone peaks on both sides as the river wound its way south.

The last stretch was pretty notable as well for being the scene on the back of a 20 Yuan note! J We tried to recreate this as a photo but the angle wasn’t quite right…

Scene from the back of a 20 Yuan note....oh and Kerry!

Xingping wasn’t much more of a town than Yangdi, though it did have some charming backstreets and a main road where we picked up a bus back to Yangshuo. That was the bus ride of nightmares – the road was in dire need of repairs and was breeding potholes and, weirdly, speedbumps, so every couple of minutes we’d either fly over a speedbump or fall into a pothole before emerging victoriously from the other side. The road was an obstacle course! Naturally, the way we chose to recover was to pick up some more beers, enjoy another gorgeous sunset from the porch of the hostel (with company from the playful cat), and then wander down to Gan’s for another excellent meal. Our regular patronage must be paying off - we were given some bonus vegetables part way through our meal!

We had one last day in Yangshuo to see as much countryside as we could, so we were more organised this time and woke up bright and early to cycle out to the Dragon Bridge along the Yulong river. 

This is a decent length bike ride, about 4 hours in total and 20km across some cycle paths that occasionally rivalled the road from Xingping! They were manageable though and our rickety hostel bikes coped pretty well. We only took one wrong turn (all that uphill cycling and we knew we were going off track and away from the river – phew!) and that was easy to rectify by heading back downhill and finding our hidden turning amongst the trees. 

The paths took us through several small villages of only a handful of houses each, and it seemed to be a game for the local kids to wave at all the cyclists, so we were often greeted by a chorus of hellos as we passed! 

Dragon Bridge................where's Wally? :)

The Dragon Bridge itself wasn’t particularly grand, though from its height you can see some lovely views of the river and surrounding fields and peaks. The bridge allowed us to cross to the other side and curve back along the river bank toward Yangshuo. 

This path back seemed in much better shape than the path there, so we enjoyed a smoother ride as we admired the passing scenery. 

 

We saw a farmer take his cows (or maybe water buffalo?) for a nice bath in the river, it felt very tranquil in the autumn sunshine.

 

In order to cross back over the river, we enlisted the help of a real bamboo raft, which managed to get us and our bikes aboard in one trip. It seems that every time we’ve been anywhere near a river in Yangshuo, we’ve heard the word ‘bamboo?’ echo around us as if we were in a cave, so it was good to finally say ‘yes, we would like a bamboo raft please’! 

It was our last night in lovely Yangshuo, so we celebrated with yet more beers, and another lovely sunset.

Somehow we didn’t realise this our first night, but every evening the limestone peaks are lit up in a subtle but effective light show that lends the whole environment an otherworldly metallic glow, as if we’re on the moon. The surrounding peaks are even more beautiful in this simulated moonlight. 

We absorbed this sight for the last time as we headed down to Gan’s for one last gorgeous Chinese binge, where we tried his spring rolls (also divine) as well as all the noodle and rice goodness we’d been indulging in over the past few days. Gan gave us more bonus veg to enjoy, and since we felt so sad to be going and because we’d been so happy eating there, we decided it would be nice to offer a tip at the end of our meal – but they were very reluctant to accept it. We did know that tipping is not the norm in China, but assumed that it would be appreciated since we had been there so many times and they had been so generous by letting us try new things and have extra veggies. So we insisted on them taking the tip, but I think we made them feel quite uncomfortable as the next thing I knew, Gan’s wife was running after us with an apple, an orange and a bottle of coke which she then insisted we accepted! It was very sweet and everyone seemed very happy with the outcome, and hopefully we didn’t offend anyone!

Gan’s Noodle Restaurant

The only slight problem to report from Yangshuo is just one of those irritating things that can happen if you aren’t thinking ahead enough – our bus back to Guilin was cancelled due to the busy traffic on the roads. It was National Week in China, a huge holiday (like a string of bank holidays in a row) so Yangshuo was filled with domestic tourists celebrating National Week, as well as international tourists celebrating Yangshuo! Getting between to the two towns was clearly proving to be a bigger nightmare than we had anticipated, so rather than return to Guilin to get on the train to Nanning (which we were going to miss anyway), we simply booked a bus to take us straight to Nanning instead. A little bit of money lost, and a less pleasant journey perhaps, but it got us to Nanning in a similar amount of time. Another lesson learned!

Lovely Yangshuo, you may just be our China highlight!

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