The Epic: China- Yangshuo

The view from our first hotel in Guilin, China!!

Exiting Vietnam proved to be a beautiful drive through lush mountains. The border at Vietnam was quite chaotic, the system for getting an exit stamp was a whole bunch of people crowded around the counter trying to get close enough for the border guy to see your passport and grab it. None of us Canadians were really interested in participating in this but, eventually realized that this seems to be their system and we don't have much of a choice. Just as we were developing our plan of attack a guy came out the side of the counter where we were standing and just took our passports and continued to take a whole stack of passports from people. We were pretty sure we would get our passports back... A few minutes later the guy came back a crowd quickly formed around him as he called out peoples names and gave people back their passports. From there we continued on into China. The China border was much more orderly and flowed nicely with the exception of them searching all of our packs...
From there we took a bus to Nanning the capital city of the Guangxi province and immediately switched buses and continued on to Guilin which is the connector city to our desired destination of Yanghsuo which is a small town surrounded by mountain karsts (limestone peaks). It was here that we immediately notice the differences between China and the rest of Southeast Asia. No one really spoke English, all of the script at the bus stations was in Chinese, we were the only white people and EVERYONE was staring at us, staring beyond normal social boundaries, I think even beyond normal Chinese social boundaries. (We have since noticed that people particularly stare at us when we wear shorts, which we don't quite understand because the Chinese wear shorts and short skirts all the time... we think maybe they are looking at our 'weird' shoes (we all have Keens), I don't know...we are also a little dirty... that might be it). Once in Guilin we were met by a lady who spoke English and told us she could take us to a hotel, it was late so we went. It was actually quite a nice hotel room, very large with an en suite. We were woken up in the morning by a peculiar fellow knocking at our door asking us what our plans were and then offered us a boat ride to Yangshuo. We had heard that this was a nice boat ride but very expensive, as such we had planned on taking the bus. His offer was significantly lower priced than the regular boat ride but significantly more expensive than the bus. After this man accompanied us to the bank and then to lunch we decided to accept his offer. We began our journey with him giving us a hand written receipt that read "3 foreign friends from Canada are taking a boat trip down the Li Yang River to Yangshuo" (the receipt system is a little different here, also, in the past recipes have been important to keep because they will get you through all the steps of your journey, we had our doubts about how far an hand written english receipt that reads like a childrens story would get us) The man first took us to a city bus, then he got off the city bus and told us his wife needed his keys but he would be back... and so we were left on the bus, going... somewhere... with our 'receipt'. But, sure enough he came back on the bus only to again get off a short while later again because he had something to do... again, still on the bus, going... somewhere... But, yet again our friend somehow got back on the bus. I still have no idea how he got off and did whatever he had to do and then caught up to the bus. By this time it was early afternoon, cold and rainy- perfect for a boat ride. We arrived at the river and got on our 'bamboo' (plastic piping) raft. The boat ride truly was amazingly beautiful, unfortunately we were all freezing, particularly Paul who was at the beginning of a cold/flu. At the end of our boat trip we had a mandatory and expensive, but delicious fish lunch at a fishermans house who lived right on the river and then continued on a bus to Yangshuo.

Here is a lovely place on the Li River that also happens to be on there 20Yuan bill

This is the same place without the money, I wish I hadn't posted it but it took a long time to load the picture so I am leaving it up.

Waking up the next morning we were disappointed to realize that Paul was quite sick and I (Tamara) was also sick. Darcy had been quite sick in Vietnam and was still recovering, which made for a sleepy day in our hotel room. We ventured out to eat, took a stroll down the tourist road, but that was about it. The next day was much the same. By the third day we were all feeling a little better and decided to rent bikes and cruise around the country side. Yangshuo is a truly beautiful place, small and laid back. The guide book says that it is a backpackers paradise and that some people who come here end up stay for months and even years. We all agreed that we could easily stay here for a long time. We biked to some main tourist spots particularly free ones called Moon Hill and the Dragon Bridge. Moon Hill is a mountain that has a bizarre hole in the middle of it. The Dragon Bridge is a bridge that is apparently 1000 years old, it was mostly restored but still cool. Now, Yangshuo's one downfall is that the only map in English is modeled after an ancient hand painted map that happens to be entirely useless, we spent a lot of time wondering where we were and where we were going but that made for the best part. The best part was biking through rice patties, weaving through the village streets, hitting dead ends, getting stranded next to a river and having to pay to get fairied accross. The fourth day we spent biking in the country side again, going through muddy trails on our cruiser bikes (some people did the same trails on tandem bikes, I have no idea how) we also explored some caves, watched some people go climbing. Yangshuo has been a wonderful time for us to recuperate and enjoy a less structured form of tourism.