Yang Shuo, Guanxi Province, China

From Guilin, it is a quick and easy bus ride to Yangshuo in the province of Guanxi. A favourite with young Chinese tourists, the quaint town is the gate to awesome scenery all around it. The landscape is like an inland version of Halong Bay, displaying similar vertical Karst formations. The Li River runs between the cliffs while the flat sections surrounded by the gigantic rocks are used for pocket-sized agriculture, where rice and vegetables are cultivated. It is quite a rural area and the contrast between its inhabitants and the domestic tourists visiting it is perhaps even more striking than our own presence.



We spent our first day in Yangshuo mostly walking around the small town. A portion of it is very touristy while the surrounding streets are not particularly interesting. Nevertheless, it seemed full of good eating options and looked like a nice base to explore the area from. For dinner, we decided to try a small eatery nearby, owned by a family of Muslim Chinese. They had a whole wall of photos of meals but we wanted to see what other people were eating and point when we found something appetizing. We must have looked confused since a young man came over to help us and, probably, practice his english, which incidentally, was pretty good. Eventually, after some slightly awkward chatting, he invited us to join his group of friends for dinner. Not able to refuse, we went over and became the focus point of 8 pairs of eyes. They had ordered an absolute feast and we were invited to try it all. It was really delicious food which one wouldn't necessarily associate with Chinese cuisine. We had curries, fried jalapenos, soup and the highlight : home-made flat rice noodles, it was sensational. Towards the end of our meal, our new friends decided that it was time to name us which began an animated discussion on what names and characters would suit us best. I was named Mo Li, which means flower and is the title of a famous opera which they all sang in unison at our table. Chris was named Gao Jian which has a less straightforward translation but refers to being strong and healthy, buildings and having valued opinions. By the time we said goodbye, we were pretty happy and in love with the warmth of the Chinese. To thank our hosts, we slipped a note attached with a kangaroo pin under their door the next morning. It was signed Mo Li and Gao Jian.



On our second day there, we decided to do a popular walk between two villages, from Yangdi to XingPing, which follows the Li River whilst going through farming land and rustic villages. The walk is supposed to take about 5 hours so we arrived in Yangdi fairly early, ready for a good day of walking. On arrival though, our plans had to change somewhat. Due to heavy rains in the previous days, the level of the River was a couple meters higher than usual and was covering up the first section of the path. Initially, it seemed that our plans were foiled and that the only way to get to Xingping was by boarding a bamboo raft all the way. The rafts can only carry a few passengers at a time and are ones of those tourist traps one tries to avoid at all cost since they are expensive, slow and boring. Deadseat on walking, we attempted some negotiations with raft owners to take us to the other side of the river where we thought we could see a path going up towards higher grounds. These efforts were in vain and after much gesticulating, we were ready to give up and hop back on the bus to Yangshuo. As a last resort, Chris asked a young man standing nearby if he spoke english and from there, our luck changed. Eager to help us, our interlocutor reinitiated the negotiation process and after a few minutes of yelling followed by total silence, a raft owner agreed to take us to a point we could walk from, all that for a portion of the price we were being offered. From then on, we were travelling with Qing Ta and a couple of his friends who took care of everything for us. The walk itself was worth the effort. The landscape was lovely as it went from following the river to going more inland and walking through fields of rice and villages. It took a little bit longer than we expected as Qing Ta, a post-graduate student whose name means "post-graduate student" and his friends were obviously not accustomed to any form of exercise and although the path was pretty much flat the whole way, had to take regular smoking breaks to rest their "very tired" limbs. Once in Xingping, we shared a big bowl of noodles as a late lunch and parted ways with the promise that we would send him some photos we took.



The following day, we decided to hire a pair of bicycles and explore another area. We planned on doing a 20km loop from Yangshuo, along the Yelong river, over a 600 year old bridge and back along the other side of the river. As usual, mapless and following the vague directions of the "Lonely planet", things didn't go exactly as planned but were good anyway. The first half was absolutely gorgeous. The Yelong river is much smaller and was quiet and clear. (the Li River was quite muddy due to the heavy rains). The scenery was stunning and the route took us through very small villages on mud tracks through rice fields. Old men with water buffalos were plowing their tiny fields while kids ran around with chooks. Although the scene seemed iddylic, it was obvious that these people were very poor and that there was nothing easy about their life. We saw a 89 year old man walking up the hill to get oranges while his wife was selling them on the side of the track. We reached the bridge after a couple of hours and had a short rest there before setting off on the other side to complete our loop. The path started to deviate from the river and thinking nothing of it, we powered along. Eventually, we crossed another Western couple coming the other way. As they passed us, they asked where we were heading and when we said "Yangshuo", they yelled the dreaded words "wrong way"... Grrr, we were lost again and after some discussions, we turned around and headed back to the bridge. We had already cycled for a few hours and we were already dreaming of steamed buns and dumplings so the idea of going back the way we came was a bit depressing. Instead of going the same way, we took the quicker main road rather than the slow picturesque path. It was 10km and we got it done pretty fast since it was a slight downhill and we were keen to get back to town. We finished off with a big bowl of wonton soup, picked up our bags from our (crappy) hostel and caught a bus back to Guilin, the main city in the province from where we would go explore another stunning area called the "Dragon's backbone terraces".