Yangshuo

Day 295 (April 18, 2019) – Yangshuo, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China

Our high-speed train from Guangzhou took us out of the flatlands of the Pearl River Delta and into China’s expansive karst landscape. Although the name for these rock formations, karst towers, may be unfamiliar, the sight of them is immediately recognizable and iconic of China. The town of Yangshuo sits along a bend of the Li River and is surrounded by these enormous rock tower formations. It was a beautiful sight and we were going to spend a few days getting more acquainted with the landscape.

Our first view of the Yangshuo area through the train window as we were rolling into the station.

Yangshuo was also our first visit to a Chinese tourist town. Compared to the megacity of Guangzhou, Yangshuo felt rather quaint and charming. There were still a lot of people around, but most were concentrated on the main pedestrian road, West Street. Filled with all sorts of shops, restaurants, and snack stands, West Street was always crowded. We’re not ones for shopping too long, so most of our time on West Street was spent on a second-story balcony of a German restaurant where we could watch everyone walk by. The only reason we kept going back was because they had the cheapest beer in town. We found a lot of good dining options in Yangshuo, finding it to be more international than what we had found in Guangzhou. We ate at some inexpensive noodle shops, a good Chinese vegetarian restaurant, and a particularly good Indian place. We had an easier time finding menus in English although we still encountered few other international tourists. There were tons of tourists in this town, but they were almost all domestic Chinese tourists.

Walking up to our hotel.

Walking along West Street to find dinner.

Our favorite spot on West Street. We would have preferred to hang out at a Chinese bar (rather than a German one), but the beer was much cheaper here and we had a great view of the street below. Also, don't be fooled by the size of the mug. Most Chinese beers are only between 2-4% alcohol, with most around 3%, so you can drink quite a lot before you feel anything.

We read that one of the best ways to explore the area was by bike, so we rented a pair of bicycles for a day and went out for a ride. Between the karst towers the land is very flat so you can get far on a bike without too much effort. The day was gray and hazy, but we still had a good time. We followed a series of roads and biking paths that paralleled the Yulong River and took us through small villages and past many strange rock towers. We took frequent breaks and took too many pictures but it was a very relaxing ride and it was always fun to see what was around the corner.

On our bike ride.

There were lots of small towns along the way. Interestingly, most of the old pick-up trucks driving around didn't have hoods over the engine. I suppose this makes it easier to fix?

Our turnaround point was at a small town with an old bridge that allowed us to get over to the other side of the river. We stopped for lunch at a small restaurant at the base of the bridge overlooking the river. The food wasn’t that good, but the view was nice.

While we were eating, we had our first experience with someone overtly taking our picture. Westerners were something of a rare sight to many and the Chinese love to take pictures of everything, so I suppose it makes sense that they might want to take pictures of these two strange Westerners they found. I think we were most surprised by the boldness of how this particular woman took our picture. She was seated with a few others at her table having lunch and started taking a few covert pictures of us from her seat. Apparently unsatisfied with the quality of the photos, she wanted to get closer, so she walked up to our table and started circling us from about five paces away, cell phone out at arm’s length to get some better shots as she worked her way around. Satisfied with the better pictures she returned to her seat to finish lunch.

One of the touristy things to do in the area is to take a bamboo raft down the Yulong River. This was historically how things were transported downriver and you can experience it by sitting in a folding chair atop a raft made of bamboo poles strung together with a rainbow umbrella overhead and a driver in the back with a long stick to direct the boat (like a Venetian gondolier). However, this is China and there were never only a few tourists around; there always seemed to be too many. Hundreds of these bamboo rafts were crammed into the riverbank here and on the other side of the bridge , waiting for busloads of Chinese tourists to arrive. 

Tour groups departing downriver on their bamboo rafts. We were on our bikes so we didn't participate.

We were mostly caught off guard by the woman's behavior and generally ignored her efforts. In future interactions with our paparazzi, our response varied with our mood. Sometimes we got into it and would smile or give a thumbs up, while other times we would just ignore it, or even in some instances stare right back at the photographer if their timing was particularly egregious. I don’t believe we were that much of a rarity in the places we travelled (we were never that far off the beaten path), but we were largely travelling to tourist destinations which also brought in many Chinese tourists from all over the country who might not have seen someone like us in person. People taking pictures of us wasn’t a constant occurrence, but it did happen fairly frequently (at restaurants or on the train was when we usually noticed it most). We never got used to it and it was always a little bit awkward. All I can say is that I’m glad I’m not famous back at home.

Most of our ride was along small paved streets cutting through small towns, farmland, and the Yulong River.

After lunch we were back on our bikes and had a pleasant ride returning to where we started, now following the river downstream and passing more rock mountains. We didn’t have the best map and ended up stuck on a muddy trail for a while, but we eventually got back onto the main road. The most stressful part was at the very end when we had to navigate the Yangshuo traffic as we made our way back into town to return the bikes.

These three-wheeled cars/trucks were quite common everywhere we went in China. They are essentially a more utilitarian version of a scooter or motorcycle, comfortably holding two passengers or a flatbed in the back to haul things.

On our last day we went for a hike up to the top of Green Lotus Peak, one of the karst towers overlooking Yangshuo. Hiking is not really a thing in China. It’s just not that popular of an activity, which makes it hard to find reliable information. The trail head we were trying to find, marked on our GPS maps and talked about online by other travelers, gave no indication that it was a real trail at all. We were already a little suspicious when the directions started with walking down a street and then going behind a hair salon. But sure enough, next to said hair salon there were some stairs leading up and behind it. I suppose you could have called it a trail, but it was incredibly overgrown and in very poor condition. It had rained the previous night so was muddy and slippery. We continued uphill, never seeing another person, and never even sure if we were supposed to be up there at all. It was hot and humid and the mud was getting all over our shoes, but we eventually reached the top. It was clear that we had lost a bit of our strong Peruvian hiking legs (I blame the Thai beaches for making us lazy), but we made it, nonetheless, muddy and dripping with sweat. The view from the top was impressive, but we had to climb on top of some rocks to get our heads above the tree line. We couldn’t take the view in all at once as it was all around us, but we could see all of Yangshuo below with its surrounding karst towers and the Li River snaking between them. It was a bit hazier than we would have liked but the strenuous hike was worth the effort.

Hiking up to Green Lotus Peak through the mud. It felt like it was a hundred degrees and 100% humidity.

View of the Li River from the top of Green Lotus Peak.

Looking down on Yangshuo.

Our selfie at the top. We were disgustingly sweaty but it was worth it.

When we got back down, we tried to make a quiet exit. Again, it was just a little unclear if we were supposed to be up there or not, so we figured it would be best if we left unnoticed. But our shoes were covered in mud, and I slipped on the way down and got my backside muddy as well, so we certainly must have looked like something was a bit off with us. We walked down the white-tiled staircase next to the hair salon, leaving muddy footprints behind, and quickly joined up with the main street again. Back in town we stopped by the river to try and rinse our shoes off, but we still had to do some sink laundry back at the hotel to wash the mud off our shorts to get back to normal again.

There is a small lake in the center of town where they put on performances at night. And yes, McDonald's is everywhere, even in China. McDonald's and Starbucks (see the stand-alone building to the left of McDonald's) always seem to have the prime real estate spots in every Chinese town and city.

Our last dinner in Yangshuo, eating their famous beer fish. I now consider it the infamous beer fish because I blame it for getting me horribly sick over the next few days. But who knows... it could have been all the hiking that day, or not drinking enough water, or having too large of a beer at dinner, or any number of things. 

That night we had our last dinner in Yangshuo at a Chinese restaurant to try the famed “beer fish” that the region is known for. I couldn’t tell you exactly what was in it, but it was basically fish and tomatoes cooked in a slightly sweet sauce that used beer rather than water as the cooking liquid. It was delicious, but I would find out the next day that it didn’t exactly agree with me. Of course, I couldn’t have known that at the time of eating it. During dinner we had a table on a veranda overlooking the small lake in the middle of town where some sort of musical performance was happening on a floating stage with lights and music and coordinated water fountains. Over-the-top would describe this and many other things we experienced in China. We were laughing a bit because even when it started pouring rain with lightning and thunder sweeping through the valley the show still went on, even with the performers  completely drenched and seemingly in danger of getting electrocuted. When the rain let up, we made a dash back to our hotel to pack and get ready to leave for Kunming the next day.

Departing from the Yangshuo train station. None of the train stations in China were subtle. Even a small train station for the tiny town of Yangshuo had an enormous and imposing facade. The largest train stations in big cities were some of the grandest and most expansive buildings we've ever been in.