Biking in Yangshuo

Chinese slippers out to dry.
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Through some dumb luck, we made friends during the long train ride to Guilin with a Korean guy who happened to be fluent in English and Chinese, and was studying tourism. He was eager to put his studies to use and to help us out with our journey. We welcomed the break and promptly went on autopilot as he enquired about train tickets from Guilin to Xi'an (our next stop), and helped us to find the bus to our destination of the day, Yangshuo, an hour away. He bid us farewell at the bus, and just like that we were again left to our own devices. One of the great things we have found while traveling here is how helpful the Chinese, as well as fellow travelers, have been. Even the touts, once you insist that you really really wont buying what they are selling, will point out where you are and where you want to go on your map.

Farmland amongst the limestone karsts.
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Straying from the 'Youth Hostel' route we had been on, we chose to stay at a family run place on the edge of town called "The Yangshuo Culture House". The house is run by English speaking Wei, his wife, and members of their extended family. Every night the family would cook an absurd selection of amazing dishes, and we would sit down with the other guese to share the food and travel stories. It was a great way to meet new people and have conversations in real English for the first time in months. One of the reasons we stayed at the house (aside from free meals 3x a day, and home-like atmosphere) were the free culture lessons. From Wei we learned the chinese game of Majong, some basics of calligraphy, and some painting. This will probably go down as the best guesthouse experience of our trip.

Farmer with water buffalo.
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The Guilin and Yangshou area in China are well known for their limestone peak 'Dr. Seuss' landscapes. We opted to stay in the smaller (pop.300k) town of Yangshou instead of the better known city of Guilin (pop 1.3 mil). Yangshou is located on the Li and Yulong Rivers and is surrounded by rice paddies as well as the limestone peaks. We explored the area on bicycle getting lost only a few times when the bike trail would narrow to a walking trail between rice paddies and force us to retrace our steps to the last intersection.

Getting lost in the rice paddies!
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Yangshuo is half-prepared for tourists. They've got the consumerism part down pat - West Street and the interesecting streets by the river were devoted to bargain-style markets of "local hand made" goods, and touts appear from nowhere the second you take a rest from biking.

The bikes, as well as the 'bamboo raft' captains are also plentiful. The area that is yet to be developed are their maps and bike trails, which never really matched up and were never signposted even though they were clearly noted on the map. "Oh!" you say, "but half the fun is finding your own way." While that is true to an extend, the day we got caught out and had to find our way back through 3 hours of pouring rain I could not agree! At any rate, it was great to bike through rural china and see life away from the city. We biked past farmers plowing fields with water buffalo, biked through local villages, orange groves, and hillside graveyards, all the while with the surreal peaks in the background.

Mudbrick home.
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On our final day we walked in to town, past the shopping mecca of West Street and over to the bamboo rafts by the Li River. We puttered downstream for an hour or so, checking out the view of the peaks from the armchair of the raft, and stopped at Fuli town - a small place known for its traditional fan making. When we came over the embankment we felt like we were in Scotland rather than China because of the rolling green pasture and quaint bridge that greeted us. Once in town there were a few big clues that of course we were in China: Chinese fans and scrolls, Mao pictures on the walls, and a man cooking a dead dog for dinner - Yum!

Katy trying to avoid one of the many touts.
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Yangshuo was a mystical land of scerene mist shrowded peaks.  We had lots of fun biking through the rice paddies and observing how Chinese farmers live off the land in traditional fashion.  Our stay was short and before long it was time to head north to Xi'an and the Army of the Terracotta Warriors.