Mark's Writings - Yangshuo, China

On 11/4/12, I went to south China for some meetings in Guangzhou, and decided to leave early and spend the weekend in nearby Guilin and Yangshuo.  Late Friday I flew from Guangzhou to Guilin.

Because I was traveling alone, I decided to just take my chances on finding my way as I go, not planning ahead much, staying away from the mainstream a little.  One consequence of that is you never know what you'll get when you arrive at a hotel (3-star hotel !)  There's quite a gap between 3 and 5 stars in China.  See the view outside my room:

  Okay, no harm done, I slept okay, didn't acquire any disease, and I got a nice breakfast(s).  In fact, I joined a lobby full of Chinese tourists for a breakfast of dumplings and rice noodles.  Midway through my breakfast, which I really was enjoying, one of the little worker ladies must have felt pity for me, and brought me fried eggs and ham, with toast.  So, I had two breakfasts that day.  I ate my eggs with chopsticks, just to show them I wasn't completely helpless.  Moving on then from Guilin, I took a boat on the Li River to the little mountain town of Yanshuo.

The Li River boats are managed by a government-owned company and come in a lot of shapes, but all are big displacement hulls that only draft about 2 feet, the river is quite shallow in many places. 

The cooks take-up the back of the boat, nothing fancy here, rice, noodles, dumplings, unidentifiable meats with bones, typical Chinese. 

The bamboo raft is the most common vehicle on the Li River.  These guys sell fruits and vegetables to the cooks on the back of the boats.

Sometimes, I think my job is a pain, but then I could be mining SAND for a living.  These guys are digging in over their heads to find sand to put in bags to sell for construction.  You could dig so deep, you'd get to China!

A very famous location in south China, the mountains that inspired a painting on the back of China's 20RMB note. 

This elderly man would talk about how his trained cormorant can catch fish.  The Chinese train cormorants to catch fish for them, but it includes a tight band around the cormorant's neck that prevents the bird from eating what he catches.  They don't even have human rights in China yet, so animal rights are a very distant concern. 

Moon hill, near Yangshuo. 

I went to an outdoor Chinese Impression show Saturday night.  The "stage" is the Li  River. 

This shot kinda turned out cool.  There are over 600 singers, dancers, bamboo-boaters in this show.

This is a picture from the top floor of the hotel in stayed in Yangshuo.  A little nicer than my hotel in Guilin.

I rented a bike... and a guide... and a bike for my guide.  A guide costs about 100rmb for the day ($16).

I took many of these pictures without getting off my bike.  

The bike ride went up the Yulong River Valley.

This is the Yulong River.  Lots of bamboo rafts for tourists and local transportation.

This photo shows Chinese tourists, getting a short ride on the bamboo rafts.

I actually took this photo, while riding my bike across the river bridge.  Kinda freaky, narrow and no handrail.

We rode through several villages, the local animals and people were curious. This cow looks a little trapped.

My guide, "Lilly" on the left, negotiated for several minutes for a 15rmb fare to get us and our bikes back across the river, $2. 

There's my rented bike, on our way across the Yulong River on a bamboo raft.

Bikes, cows, mountains.

I took a bunch of pictures of the "haystacks".  But, these are rice stalks, after the rice is harvested. At this time of year, most of the rice is harvested.  There are two rice crops per year, this far south.