Guilin and Yangshuo - Yangshuo, China
Yangshuo, China
Where I stayed
Guilin Paradise Yangshuo Resor
What I did
West Street (Xi Jie) Yangshuo
I'll finish up Mom's visit so I can share other amusing China stories! We woke up early Sunday morning and had breakfast in the Bravo hotel. Mom tried lots of interesting things like rice noodles and different cakes. I had eggs, fruit, and toast. Frank and our driver picked us up at the hotel and drove us to the Guilin wharf to catch our boat for the boat cruise to Yangshuo. To Frank's surprise we spent most of the cruise on the top deck viewing the scenery despite the rain. The section of the Li River between Guilin and Yangshuo is probably the most iconic parts of the river and even one of the most iconic parts of China. The 20 kuai bill has a scene on it from the river of karst formations. All along the way are karst formations and small villages/towns. There are people driving tourists on smaller bamboo (now usually PVC pipe) rafts with little outboard motors on smaller sections of the river and water gorillas, men on bamboo rafts paddling a la stand up paddle board. They paddle up to the different tourist boats and try to sell fruit to the people on board. We saw one who paddled up to our boat and hooked on using a rusty hook then walked along the edge selling oranges, grapes, and other fruits to the people on the boat. About halfway in to our boat ride lunch was served. It was cooked on the boat so Frank warned us that it was not a 5 star lunch. He also warned us that at the beginning of the boat ride the bathrooms would be 5 star but by the end of the ride they would be no stars. Lunch was ok, they had fried rice and a whole bunch of boiled sweet potatoes and corn, a meat dish, and green beans among other things. My favorite dish were eggplant slices that had been fried and the boiled sweet potatoes that you peel and eat like an orange. For dessert there was a type of cake and lots and lots of oranges! (Small green oranges are in season right now and are very tasty! Very sweet.) we spent the last bit up top in the rain enjoying the scenery and looking for water buffalo. We did see a few complacently grazing next to the river as well as plenty of cows. The boat docked in Yangshuo, our next destination. We passed one of the famous cormorant fisherman on our way up. The cormorants are tethered to the boats by a rope around their neck and dive into the water to bring up fish. The fisherman tightens the rope so they can't swallow the fish and then reward the bird with a smaller fish to eat. Now very few people use his method to go fishing, it is more of a tourist attraction. This fisherman sat at the dock and barged people 5 kuai for pictures. We walked up Yangshuo's famous pedestrian street, West Street, to our hotel next to the only KFC in town. After checking in we decided to go for our bike ride despite the rain and because we knew it would rain even more the next day. We went down a back alley with Frank and tested out our bikes. Mom managed to fall off of her bike before we even left the garage. All of the bikes had baskets in the front and a rack or basket in the back, making it difficult to hop off easily. While testing her brakes she went to hop off, forgot the basket, and ever so gracefully went sideways. We still went on our bike ride and after an exciting ride through traffic in town were able to see some gardens and houses outside the city. We stopped at a 300 year old farm house for a tour and made fast friends. The 12th generation are living in the stone house in rooms without heat or AC. They all had smart phones though and even had a flat screen tv in the kitchen. The husband provided mom with some special first aid (Mercurochrome or iodine) and showed us how to lift some heavy rocks (weights) in the courtyard. The wife was hard of hearing but still showed us how to make soybean milk using a huge stone press. In the main room we saw the ancestor shrine and heard our new farmer friend speak some English. He tried to teach mom "beautiful" in Chinese and showed us a picture of him shaking hands with Obama. (For whatever reason he had a picture of Obama mixed in with the family pictures.) he was very excited explaining this other picture in his dialect so all I understood was shake hands, picture, and computer. It turns out he is just really good at photoshop. We got to admire the chickens trying to hide inside From the rain and the mothers casket before leaving. Good children are supposed to buy their parents a coffin once they are past a certain age so they know they are taken care of. Very few people are buried anymore because there is not a lot of space for cemeteries! From the farmhouse we bikes to another small river, the Jade Dragon River, where were treated with beautiful views of the karst mountains and the hundreds of bamboo boats making their way down the river. Mom thought there were men fishing trash out of the river but it turned out that the bamboo rafters have to have a license they drop off each time they go back and forth. Due to the rain we decided it was best to head back to our hotel. We navigated the buses of tourists traveling down the (barely) 2 lane, bumpy road. Mom almost had a guy who looked like he'd never been on a bike before almost run in to her but we made it. Along the way we passed the local kindergarten, an old building with chickens running around and what looked like dirt floors. We also passed quite a few hostels and hotels for people who wanted to be more in the countryside. For dinner Frank took us to one of the more popular restaurants in town where we had to wait a while to sit. Mom saw a little girl clearly very bored. She was with her grandma at the top of the stairs yelling "grandpa!" In Chinese until he came upstairs with her stroller. Of course mom made funny faces and played peekaboo. The little girl and her grandma went away for a but only to come back and have the mom take videos of mom and the little girl blowing kisses and playing peekaboo. We figured out why our hotel was so highly ranked when we had breakfast the next morning. It's restaurant has a sunroom and porch that looks out at the mountains and above has a porch to sit on. We spent the morning wandering the famous pedestrian West Street and looking in stores. While most things were typical touristy gifts there were a few cute, more unique stores. I had one lady tell me I was a Chinese lady when I bargained with her for some paintings. After lunch we met our driver and Frank and went back to Guilin to the airport for our return to Shanghai.