Yearning for Yangshuo

I hopped on a train  this Easter weekend bound from Hong Kong to Guangzhou in hopes of escaping the crazy concrete jungle, and I found Yangshuo. It was worth the trip.
We arrived in Guilin, on a clear day and was picked up by the friendly hostel cab. Boy, he was surprised. He thought we were supposed to be older ladies. Me and Daryl didn't know how to react to this. Was Yangshuo the kind of holiday meant for the elderly? Ah well, we were probably old at heart. Matured thinking. Whatever works.

The Outside Inn is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. They had those rustic olden rooms, the kind you would find in Bali, Railey (Krabi), Island style. Old but comfy. And I just fell in love.

As the weather was good, we decided to get a hand-drawn map and just get lost in the villages, mountains with our bikes. The route was beautiful. I even had my hand at practicing my rusty half Mandarin which helped us get lost even deeper into the village (no help there, many wrong turns and many misintepreted questions). We found the Yulong river at the point of the Dragon bridge. It was a sight to behold.

Of course, when you get there, you must take a bamboo ride down the river. It almost feels like when you're on a gondola at the venetian hotel in macau. Only its real. Our raft guy was great, showing us animal resemblances of all the karst (ie frog, dog, dinasour, elephant - okay i made the last one up)

After an hour though, the novelty wore off so we got off the raft at mid-point of nowhere and decided to cycle. Now I am not sure if Mr Raft decided that leaving us in the middle of the plantation with no absolute route whatsoever was on purpose, but we found ourselves stuck. So we had to literally huff and puff in between gardens of greens and mud trying not to injure any vegetables or plants with our very very heavy bicycle to get unto a proper track. Eventually after bracing ourselves through pack of dogs, army of frigthened ducks and even a cow or two and a water buffalo hiding in the mud pool, we were back on the tiny cycling path.

I found myself getting all excited about dirt biking at this point and was just at the point of revelation where I wanted to hurl myself into this exciting sport professionally when I accidentally swerved into a plot of land off the track almost killing an innocent lady and her husband tending to their garden! Boy did she yell! I was absolutely horrified, not wanting to cause anyone a cardiac arrest or so. Daryl was no help at this point as she couldn't stop laughing (ie snorting). Luckily no mortality was reported that day and they managed to make a joke out of my amazing skills.

By the time we got back to the inn, it was night, and Daryl needed to try Beer fish. A Must in Yangshuo! I on the other hand recommend their gin tonic. I got addicted.

The next day it rained all day so we had to get up late (note that we were absolutely forced to stay in bed). We did manage to get into town and explore the Li river and the west street market. Its a cute city, nobody hassles you or tries to get you to buy anything so we still managed to get some tribal patterned shawl.

I was in for a surprise when I got back. I didn't expect there to be room cleaning as I usually stay at dorm hostels. However the room was all cleaned up and Big Donkey was even tucked into bed! It was too cute that the innkeeper had tucked him in! Guess he had a really relaxing day in..

On the last day we wanted to cycle to moon hill cave, but surprise surprise, none of us could managed the bicycles. It was just too painful... so we walked and walked and walked and walked.  Saw many caves, caves with butterflies, mud, etc etc. Strawberry fields in abundance. And many many gigantic tourist buses.

We eventually left for Guilin in the evening, but there really isn't much there except that it was a big city. A few markets, temples, frogs and such. We went back to Guangzhou the next day but as the train tickets were all sold out to HK we had to go to Shenzen (at least there were trains every 15 minutes) and arrived back in HK in 1 piece!. Phew. Back to work tomorrow but Yangshuo will always be close to my heart (That and a couple more of those gin tonic).