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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Guilin – Night-light Robbery!

Sun and Moon Twin Pagodas

Twenty hours later… we finally pull into Guilin train station, having grown tired of trying to get comfortable on our bunk beds and stretched out into the tiny aisle seats as the train emptied. Guilin has a small station so it is not the organised chaos of larger cities, where you are siphoned into smaller clusters until you’re standing bemused on a train platform: instead, you are tipped out into a station square where taxi drivers and hotel owners accost you within moments. Seeing as we were at the station, we decided to buy our train ticket onward to Nanning for a few days later, so we wouldn’t need to think about that nearer the time. Bradley set off to sort that out while I held the fort with the bags, and although I was invited to stay at several different hotels and enter several nearby taxis, I patiently ignored these requests and observed the square around me. It seemed that everywhere I looked, there was someone with a satchel of information on some tour, or hotel, or bike hire establishment… this was the kind of tourist trap we had somehow avoided so far throughout China. Fortunately, we had already booked somewhere to stay, so we didn’t need to linger too long or ponder how to proceed, and jumped on the bus heading toward our hostel.

The Backpacker Hostel was located just off the main pedestrianised road into town, and run by some very enthusiastic and helpful people. We had a really spacious bedroom, with some lovely traditional furniture and a view out to the main streets below. We quickly ditched our backpacks and headed out to stretch our legs and check out central Guilin.

Which may have been a mistake, as the next thing we knew some pesky creature had stolen my iPhone from my bag. A note here on security – we’ve been careful and all that, and should know better from our previous travel experiences that you have to be so careful, but until this point I guess we’d had no trouble, and so perhaps we got a little complacent? Who knows, but it was a costly mistake, and didn’t bode well for our stay in Guilin, which was a shame as we’d been really looking forward to our time here. We beat a hasty retreat to the hostel to sit down and reset all my passwords and so on, which took up most of the evening.

Inevitably, the next day was spent feeling a bit blue and annoyed. Bradley very kindly offered to buy me a new phone as an early birthday present as he knew I’d be missing the ease of communicating with friends and family, so we spent most of the day trooping through the endless phone shops and pondering whether to buy one or not, when we changed our minds and opted for an iPod Touch instead. 

Secretly I don’t think I wanted to get anything new to figure out (as I’m not very technically minded) so something that works exactly the same as my phone did seemed ideal – and the phone/text part is very little use out here! I’m now in a very happy relationship with the iPod! Oh Apple, you really are too attractive. Of course, it does make you feel a little like an over-privileged child to be in a position to have a replacement in your hands within days, but there is no denying we have the money available for a situation like this. It highlights how very fortunate we are, even if we are on a budget.

 

One lovely highlight in Guilin is the Sun and Moon Twin Pagodas, both situated in the middle of a lake in the centre of town. They look gorgeous by day and are also lit up beautifully at night. Most walks around the town take in the Pagodas – and the outskirts of the lake are an enjoyable walk too, comprised of elegantly landscaped gardens and an army of sculptures. You can go onto the Pagoda island, but the view from the lakeside was so impressive we were content with that.

'Bom bom bom - by-i-yah,
Bom bom bom - by-i-yah'

It was only round the corner from our hostel, and we returned several times to wander by the lake before we left Guilin (it was also a great shortcut to avoid the main tourist street!).

Guilin is surrounded by beautiful scenery, and bike rides, but as we are going to Yangshuo as well we decided to save the nearby countryside for there. Instead, we had the famous Longji (Longsheng) Rice Terraces to visit, otherwise known as the Dragon’s Backbone Rice Terraces (because the mountain looks like the back of a dragon, and the terraces look like scales). We booked a day trip out there with our hostel, perhaps our second mistake in Guilin! You can make your own way out there, but it relies on the mysteries of local buses and not getting lost in the countryside as you walk from town to town, so we decided a day trip might be safer. 

Unfortunately, it was a very ordered day (without the hiking time we’d asked for) and involved less than two hours on the terraces, including the lunch break and the walk through Ping’An, a village at the heart of the rice-growing operation here. But these two hours were very special and made the day worthwhile – the rice terraces look incredible from the heights reached by the bus, and even more so as you walk through Ping’An, which follows a path to the top of the terraces. Ping’An is essentially one narrow stepped walkway through tall, narrow houses, with craft stalls on the steps and the occasional restaurant scattered through the town. 

The tour guide led everyone to a busy, crowded restaurant and seemed very confused when we decided, along with three other backpackers we’d got chatting to on the bus, to pick our own lunch destination. We got a headstart on the tour group and reached the top of the village, and from there found some even more spectacular views of the rice terraces. 

The autumn rice terraces are starting to turn golden from a vivid green, and the rice is close to harvest. The rice terraces are farmed by local minority Chinese villagers, including those from Ping’An, although it must disrupt community life to have so many tourists trekking through your livelihood! We were also told that very little money from tourism (e.g. entrance fees to the terraces from tour groups) is fed back into the minority village communities, which seems very unfair since they cultivate this incredible sight.

The rest of the day was taken up with a delicious lunch at a small restaurant we found on our way back through Ping’An, and waiting while the rest of the tour group went to the Yao Long Hair show. We might have felt more in the mood for it ourselves if we hadn’t had to pay extra on top of the tour price (the itinerary for the tour had stated that the show was optional, and we could do an afternoon hike instead if we preferred… which we’d all been told we could easily do, except that we couldn’t as there was nowhere to hike to or from). All this deviating from the tour made the day feel like a ‘Choose your own Adventure’ story, but never mind. In retrospect it may have been quite interesting to see the show – Yao women never cut their hair, and so have what is alleged to be the longest hair in the world – but we had a pleasant time chatting to our new friends (who’d had a similar vision for the day as us) and picking up tips on other destinations! We all went for a very uninspiring walk around the show grounds, where the majesty of the rice terraces felt a distant memory, and although we were feeling a little cheated, we did feel sorry for our tour guide – he spoke very poor English, and seemed bemused as to how he could help us; not really his fault though as he wasn’t the one who had promised us all an English speaking guide. 

The rice terraces are well worth a visit, and Ping’An is a fascinating town to walk through, but if you ever visit, try to find your own way there as our trip essentially consisted of walking from one photo hotspot to another, and the atmosphere would have been lost among the crowds if we hadn’t slipped away from our tour group at just the right time.

That night we treated ourselves to yummy dumplings for dinner to cheer ourselves up, before one last day of exploring Guilin without a phone-buying mission or an inadequate tour! The central streets of Guilin could be any tourist haven in the world – there are shops selling t-shirts and souvenirs, fast food (including McDonalds and KFC) and market stalls in any gap without a shop. Bearing in mind that this environment had been conducive to the earlier theft, we limited our time here and headed out of town, across the main bridge, which gave us the chance to admire the Li river fully. We then took a walk to the north of town, where we could view the limestone karst formations rising up around the town centre, before having an amazing lunch at a local street restaurant where you get to pick all the ingredients you want from a huge array of meat and vegetables, and watch them stir fry it for you. Even though we picked out a lot of vegetables to bulk out a substantial stir fry, it was still only 50p each for this fine dining (which was also very popular – every time a table became free someone would grab it from the street!) Much better than going to McDonalds (which we have done in emergencies!). 

That last day in Guilin restored our spirits considerably, and turned around a mixed few days. The scenery as we wandered back along the Li river was incredible, and it was nice to leave behind the negative experiences we’d had and appreciate our last day fully. 

We finally understood why Guilin was so popular and Guangxi was regarded as such a beautiful province, and we couldn’t wait to get to Yangshuo the next day and explore the area further.

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Chongqing – down by the riverside

Statue at Arhat Temple

Chongqing is the starting or finishing point for many a Yangtze river cruise, so although we’ve decided to skip the cruise in favour of indulging fully in the delights of Halong Bay in Vietnam, we thought we’d stop by for a couple of days to witness the mighty river, and explore the heights (and lows) of this hilly city. As ever in China, we hit our first hurdle as soon as we left the train station – where was this local bus that the hostel speaks of? While Bradley scouted the area to find it, I settled down to watch our bags and eat the leftover oranges from our short train journey. A woman came past begging with her little boy and I gave them an orange each, which they seemed first baffled by, then delighted with – at least I think they did! It’s hard to know what to give sometimes but we seem to get a better response when we give food instead of money, so it makes it easier (if a little dictatorial – you will eat oranges!) to give something helpful to people in need here. 

Bradley finally found the bus and we made the one hour journey to our hostel at the other side of town. In many ways the location was great – right by the river and near to the Chongqing boat cruises (you can do a short evening cruise – more on that later) but in other ways it is a terrible location because the entrance is hidden behind a host of packing crates - we were within moments of giving up on finding it at all before we realised we were right next to it! The hostel is not just by the river, it is by the docks – so there’s also non-stop traffic along the waterside and up and down the hills to the roads. The place was actually quite lovely though once we got settled in, and even though we were in dorm beds, they each had curtains so it was like being in our own private bubbles. 

We really didn’t have very long to explore Chongqing as we only had two nights there, so as soon as we had dropped out bags off, we headed out again. Right next to the hostel there are some steep cliff steps, which are the quickest way by far of reaching the main part of the city. The whole city is very hilly and it’s good exercise trekking the streets! 

 

The first stop was Arhat Temple, a peaceful complex right at the heart of the area we were staying. As well as a quiet courtyard (the outside noise feeling muted somehow, even though we were surrounded by main roads) the Temple had an amazing hall filled with terracotta Arhat statues, or statues of people who have achieved enlightenment and therefore pass to nirvana after death. 

Apparently there were 500 statues – they lined the walls and created a network of aisles within the hall to fill the space. Each Arhat looks different, and it’s easy to start imagining the lives of the Arhats - they look like real characters!

As Chongqing is so hilly and has a massive river winding through its core, there are two cable cars linking the heights on one side to the lower ground on the other side of the river. We took the main cable car across the river (and back again) purely for the city view (a bargain at the princely sum of 50p). It seems to be a popular form of public transport as well as a scenic way to travel – getting from A to B by bus would take forever, especially as  a lot of the bridges that will be crossing the river are still being built, so the cable cars must be a huge help to the locals. 

From the cable car you can see the fast-paced growth of the city in stark contrast to older buildings – as we’ve often seen in China, the city is evolving at a rapid rate, but this is the first time we’d seen high rises alongside such old and damaged buildings. 

Some of these older stilt buildings are falling apart and at some point developments may steamroller through these poorer areas, but they also house thriving communities and the local culture and history that the modern city lacks. 

We took a video of the trip back across the river – it starts out a bit boring, but it’s worth hanging on until near the end if you’re interested in seeing this old, still-standing stilt housing.

We may have been sacrificing the big Yangtze cruise, but we decided we’d still do the evening boat trip that Chongqing is famous for, so we headed back past our hostel to check out the cruise ships. 

We’d been reliably informed that the boat to go for had a giant crown on it (yes, it was as gaudy as it sounds!) but we couldn’t see this boat at first so we went with another one instead. This may have been a mistake, as nobody spoke English on our boat, and there was no English menu, so our romantic dinner on the river fell through (bar a plate of peas we managed to order as a snack) and we had blaring Chinese music ringing in our ears for much of the journey. 

However, once we finally set sail it was a pleasant way to spend an hour, and we had a comprehensive tour of the river and its well-lit skyline. We eventually found our crown – the boat was hidden behind another boat, and had ‘Welcome’ written in English in neon lights on it, so maybe was the boat for us after all… we’ll never know!

We had a few free hours the next day to wander through the city centre, check out the Liberation Monument (which was surrounded by designer clothes shops, and then within 20 metres a further ring of dusty backstreets as yet untouched by Gucci et al but it’s only a matter of time) before heading back to the hostel to plan ahead to Guilin and get some work done.

Chongqing is also famous for its spicy hotpot (not quite like Betty's in Corrie!). We decided to head somewhere nearby for dinner and with the helpful notes from the hostel tried to order a local hotpot - and ended up with a table full of food, possibly one dish of which was the hotpot... It was pretty tasty though - except for the egg mash goo on the right there (Bradley loved that enough for the both of us)! All this is what you get when you have a list of ingredients written down in Chinese in your hand, and then get quizzed on them (in Chinese) without having a clue what's going on.

On our final day, we tried to get across to the Theatre by the other city cable car but it was closed, so instead we did a final city walk before the rain came down, leaving us with some free time to go food shopping for the overnight train we had that night (20 hours!) and to catch up with the blog. Twenty hours on a train – that felt pretty daunting! But Guilin sounded fantastic so it seemed like a worthwhile price to pay.

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