Yangshuo

We arrived in the famous Yangshuo after a reasonably problem free border crossing with our new friends Tess and Andy... finally, we had arrived in China! The only problem was, it was freezing and we didn't really have appropriately warm clothes. There was no other option but to spent lots of cash on water/windproof jackets, pants and gloves, and some longjohns and beanies.
The very next day of course, it was gorgeous and sunny and we had to dig the t-shirts out again!

Me in my new hat.

Tim infront of a temple in the side of a mountain, near our guest house.

The beginings of bao zhe (steamed buns) and jao zhe (steamed dumplings).

Bridge in the park near our guest house.

Temple on the hill, looking over Yangshuo.

After one of our many shopping expedition days, we stopped in at a bar called Mei You on the main tourist street. Mei You means "don't have" in Chinese, and they really didn't have much in the way of cheap beer (only the expensive imports surprisingly!), but we wanted to stay for the atmosphere.
It was only a little bar, but there were quite a few Chinese people in there dancing very badly to... Chinese gabba music... complete with a smoke machine. A good opportunity to make instant friends!
It turns out that the National Director of Nokia (who was very, very drunk and later got up and sang kareoke on stage) took his entire sales team on a group holiday to Yangshuo and everything was on the house. We danced with them and had a couple of beers which they thought was fantastic - some random Westeners gate-crashing their party and joining in. Their kept clinking our beers and calling us friends, which was funny. In one instance, Nokia boss clinked his beer with Tim three times which is apparently a "challenge" in China, and you have to scull the rest of your beer. I thought the challenge wasn't really fair, as Tim had a full 750ml beer, and the boss has an almost empty 365ml Sol beer - so I gave him my full 750ml beer. Tim won. Nokia boss got through about 100mls before pouring 200ml down his shirt and tie... hehehe... but major face was lost on his behalf. He recovered quickly though, and everyone else thought it was pretty funny, so it was all good.

Tim, Mr Nokia and one of his collegues at Mei You.

Yangshuo is famous for the surrounding limestone karst formations that stretch out as far as the eye can see, and there is also the Li and Yulong rivers close by with lots of little old villages scattered about the place.

On the very first day that the sun came out, Tim and I hired some bicycles and rode the 3 k's to nearby Fuli (fuli sick mate!) to see the old town, which the LP says, is hundreds of years old and has cobbled streets. I'm sick of that damn book. Fuli town was just that, a town... although we knew when we finally arrived at the "old town", because there was lots of souvenier stalls lining the cement path.

The ride back from Fuli was nice though, as it went along the Li River, and not the main highway (as the first leg of the journey did). Honestly, the whole thing wasn't worth the sore bum from the bike, but at least we got out and did something, right?

Me in front of whatever it was they were growing.

Tim on the long and winding road.

On the bike in the "old town" of Fuli.

A damn on the Li river near Fuli.

Me on the worst bike this side of Yangshuo.

The weather stayed perfect long enough for our bums to recover, and we decided to go for a bit of a trek along the Yulong river, as recommended on a fantastic website called chinabackpacker.com.

We encountered absolutely stunning scenery along the entire walk, and tried to follow the river side as much as possible. Mostly this meant walking along the ridges of farmers' crops and occasionaly along the proper path, but it made it feel like we were the only travellers in the whole region (which is always nice).

There were a couple of interesting bridges and ruins along the way, but the highlight for us (apart from the limestone karsts) was the 'Ancient Houses'... and they really were. It looked like the villagers were trying to restore some of them (there was even a place to stay there!), but we had to push on unfortunately as the light was fading.

Dragon's bridge just outside of Baisha - it was built in 1419 FYI.

The view from the top of the bridge.

Starting out on our walk...

Stopping to smell the flowers.

One of the 25 damns along the Yulong river between Baisha and Yangshuo.

Tim trying out our new waterproof boots while crossing the river.

The Wulong bridge.

The beautiful limestone karsts along the Yulong.

Some of the lovely houses in the Ancient town.

Some more gorgeous scenery... yawn. ;)

Well, well, well... who do we have here?

Not THE Great Wall, but it is pretty great.

Me in front of some of the Ancient Houses.

Fading light on our walk.

It was quite a long trek, and by the end of it, my legs were really tired and my feet hurt and we just wanted to get back to our hotel but we had another 4k's to walk in an hour before the sun left us... it's just not going to happen. However regretably, in some situations (ie. when we know the price of something and are quoted double or triple the cost), we have turned into travellers that will cut off our noses to spite our faces. So, we told three converted trackters where they could shove their ridiculous kwai prices in the time that we were limping along the road... eventually, it started to get noticitably darker, and we happened across a pack moto drivers. As we were negotiating with them (even though they quoted 15 kwai each, when we know it should only be 3!!!!), two cars with Chinese tourists sent from heaven pulled up and offered us a free lift back to Yangshuo! Hooray!! Tim even got the pleasure of turning around and giving them the ol' thumbs up and wink combo to the pissed off moto drivers... it's the simple things in life. :)