Yangshou

Next stop the backpacker hangout of Yangshuo which was a beautifully scenic but essentially poor agricultural area. Again not that small at 300,000 inhabitants. We were befriended on the bus travelling there by Li- Mae, a Chinese university student travelling home to see her family in time for Chinese New Year.

We found a fantastic hostel and had a room with our own TV & DVD player and a bath tub! Li- Mae offered to be our guide and show us around some of the stunning limestone karst sights- Moon Hill and Big Banyan Tree- on bikes. Unfortunately that lunchtime we lost our camera which was pretty upsetting!

The next day we hired bikes on our own and cycled up to Dragon bridge and came back down the Yulong River on a bamboo raft. We expected the rafting to be very serene and it was apart from every fifteen minutes or so we went over weirs and had to hold on tight. Dave got his feet soaked at one point. Great fun though.

On our last day we explored Green Lotus peak in town and cycled to a little village called Fuli. We also witnessed some cormorant fishing in the river. The fisherman use their cormorants to do the fishing for them and then coax them back to the boat with the fsh in their mouths. Ingenius.