Welcome back, or welcome….
Yangshuo was where our China adventure began one year
earlier. We decided to head back to this
area as the scenery is absolutely stunning and we did not really get a chance
to take it in as we got shipped out to Huaian immediately our orientation had
finished – so here we are back again.
Started in Guilin after arriving on the plane from Xian,
where I got to leave my Swiss army knife as I forgot to pack it in my checked
luggage and got busted by the X-ray machine at the airport – bugger.
Made our way to a hostel in the main part of town and near
to the Li River. It has a great
lounge/bar set-up here and the pizzas are pretty good so all in all a good
place to stay. Spent a day wandering
around the town and included a visit to the Elephant Hill park which is a big
attraction here and of course you have to pay to get into the park. A little ho-hum to be honest and felt there
was far better scenery in this area to be viewed for free.
One of the reasons for heading back this way was to visit
the rice terraces which we did by joining a day bus tour which was sorted by the
hostel. On the way there we were told
that some access to the terraces was blocked by slips in the mountainous area,
luckily there are several areas of terracing available to visit.
Part of the tour was a stop at a village occupied by people
of the Yao ethnic minority. The main feature here is the woman have extremely
long hair, up to 1.7mtrs long and they are often called the “long hair minority”. The other interesting fact here was the
village is run by the women with the men pretty much doing as they are told –
didn’t fancy hanging out here for long!
On the road again and once at the main town servicing the
terrace tourist industry we had to change into smaller buses which then wound
up some pretty dodgy “goat track” roads and arrived at another carpark and then
proceeded to walk for about 30 minutes to a small village in the midst of the
Longji Terraces. After an organised
lunch, which was pretty average, we wandered around the terraced hillsides and
amongst the houses, some of which were over 100 years old. Was quite a hike back to the buses as we had
gone quite a distance past the village in pursuit of the “next good picture.”
Next day we caught a local bus to Yangshuo which took about
one and a half hours. Upon arrival we
made our way to Tiffany’s Hostel which is very close to the Bucklands
school/office – this is the company we worked for in China. Went for a wander around town and in the
space of 1 year we noticed a few changes, the biggest being a whole new roading
tunnel through a hill – they sure don’t muck around here; RMA? Consent? Opposition? –forget it!!
During our walk we enquired about an evening cormorant
fishing display, first place 80RMB, second place 60RMB and then the next place
was 60RMB which quickly went to 40RMB when I said we would think about it. OK, so we go back at 7pm to meet the ‘guide’
who turns up and we walk through town collecting several other tourist groups,
Chinese and foreigners, and we are led towards the river and then a gravel
track in the dark towards a flat bottomed boat equipped with rows of
seats. This is looking pretty dodgy by
this time and of course there are no life-jackets.
The skipper shoves off and we go around several old boats
tied up on the river-bank and next thing this small boat comes alongside driven
by an old Chinese guy with about 6 cormorant birds on the front. These birds are fish catchers and the Chinese
worked out by putting a ring on their neck they cannot swallow the fish and the
handler uses a hook set-up to grab the bird and retrieve the fish, all pretty
good –for the fisherman, fish and bird not so much.
So cruising in the semi dark in a sheltered arm of the river
and these birds are diving into the dirty brown water beside our boat and all
of a sudden there is a splash and a bird dives and appears with a fish which is
duly retrieved and the bird released to continue. Now call me a cynic but I was sure I had seen
this fish ‘dive’ into the water a split second before said bird ‘caught
it’. The crowd on the boat thought this
was pretty good and so I watched and waited. That is I watched the ‘guide’ at the back of
our boat and sure enough after a short time he threw another small fish over
the top of our boat in front of the birds and was again snapped up by the
diving birds. The whole thing was just
such a scam it actually became funny and we had a good laugh with another
couple about the whole thing – except they had paid 80RMB –haha. And then when we got dropped off back at the
edge of the river there was another 25 odd people waiting to get on the boat
for the “Cormorant Fishing Show/Scam”.
Remember, TIC and often things are not what you see in the advertising
picture.
The next day we hired bicycles and headed off to discover
some of the surrounding countryside amongst the beautiful Karst hills. We covered quite a bit of ground on both
sides of the river and sure earned our pizza dinner and a couple of beers at
the Alley Bar in downtown that evening. So
you think China is a large place? – and there we are cycling down some random
track outside of Yangshuo near the Li River when you run into an American
couple I had chatted to for 10 minutes in a pizza bar 2 weeks earlier and
nearly two thousand kilometres away in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia.
We had run into an Irish family along the way and they had
hired motor-scooters which seemed like a better idea so we organised a scooter
for the next day.
It sure was a better way to get around and this time we went
far and wide. One track through a
village to the river was a dead end and had to back-track. Was great though as we ended up talking to a
Chinese couple from Harbin. They had
just sent their 15 year old son to college in Texas and they are expecting him
to go on to University and are budgeting 5 million RMB for this 8 year
exercise. He works for one of the major
banks and she at a Telecom company –must have pretty good jobs is all I can
say.
Visited the ancient Dragon Bridge after passing through the
town of Baisha. Along the river there were simply hundreds of bamboo rafts
ferrying tourists on the Li River and all the associated stalls that go with people
gathering. Then back to Baisha and we decided
to do a loop out amongst the hills and back into Yangshuo another way and
planning to be back in town at the Alley Bar to catch the second half of the
All Blacks vs Australia test.
It was a great ride and the scenery magnificent until……there
was a loud bang as we headed up a hill.
I stopped and the scooter wouldn’t start as well as a strong smell of
burnt rubber. We coasted back down the
hill and pushed it to a very small community we had just passed through. At the intersection, which way? Right, and there was a small shed which was a
motor-cycle repair business. We pushed
it in and this guy-looked about 15, got stuck into it and the whole wiring loom
was burnt and the battery had exploded.
A lady in the village was summonsed who spoke English and the bike hire
company were contacted and arranged for repairs and a new battery. About 2 hours and 200RMB later we headed off
for the remaining 15km ride back to town.
The repairs were a lesson in ingenuity and use of scraps lying around in
this guys workshop, but hey they worked. -photos
Following day we went on a river boat trip which was really
good and included a mini-van trip to the starting point. A feature of this trip was the scenery which
is featured on the 20RMB note and we joined the crowds getting the photo. –photo.
Having finally spent some time exploring this area we were
pleased we had come back and taken the time to wander and soak up the
atmosphere here. Highly recommend
visiting this part of the world. Next day it was time to hit the road and head
back to Huaian and get ready to leave China.
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| Longji rice terraces, local women. Red chilli peppers being dried on a roof. Jonathan in Guilin, and cormorant fishing display. |
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| The amazing country side around Yangshou. |
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| Motor scooter repairs, a lady I got to photograph while waiting for the scooter to be fixed. View on the way back to Yangshou. Jonathan with the 20 RMB note that matches the hills behind. |
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