China Part Two: Yangshuo

After an overnight train, a one and a half hour bus ride, and a ten minute walk we made it to the charming stone paved streets of Yangshuo. Here we stayed at a youth hostel (not the best but certainly not the worst place we've ever stayed). Away from the hustle and bustle of the city, we got to experience the quieter side of China. Although the shops, musicians, boaters, and street vendors were appealing, the real draw to this area was the limestone karsts.



This area is literally covered with them as far as you can see. The first day we were there, we wondered the streets and made some bargain buys. Late that afternoon we headed in a van for a river tour through the karst lined Li River.



As you can see from the video our boat didn't appear to be the most sea worthy vessel, but it made it out and back okay. The scenery was awesome, and we got some great sunset views before we headed back in.


The next morning our group gathered together to ride mountain bikes through the country side. Once again, we weren't sure if our bikes were going to make it (one of the bikes in our group actually didn't), but we got lucky and finished the trek.



We took a bunch of unpaved roads and received some strange looks along the way (as we did in many parts of the country). As you can see in the pictures, there wasn't a lack of scenery on this bike ride.


After awhile we came upon a karst known as Moon Rock, which is a popular hike for the tourists. Before we even started on the hike, Amy and I had a couple of local farmer's wives trailing us with fans. They fanned us up and down the entire trail (the hike took a good part of 2 hours round trip)...and all they wanted in return was for us to buy a coke from them. That's them with Amy near the top of the climb. China's economy might be booming, but a majority of them still live in poverty as we witnessed many times along the trip.


After the bike ride and climb we were treated to a traditional farmer's lunch at a nearby farm. I can't really remember what all we ate, but I do remember eating this chicken's foot (I guess that chicken didn't cross the road).

The picture below is at the farm where we had lunch. You can see Moon Hill in the background to the left.

That night we took a local taxi/van to watch a light show on the Li River. The significance of it being that the director will direct the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. And if the opening ceremonies is anything like the show we watched, it will be worth watching. I didn't get any good pictures or video, but here is a snippet of it.