Tom's visit 2015 part 2 : Yangshuo (moved from old blog)

 The Return of the Brother: YangShuo

A quick two hour flight from Shanghai is the incredible scenery of Yangshuo. Months ago, when I was planning our holiday I spent hours google-ing, 'Top places in China' and 'where to visit in China' almost all of the lists featured YangShuo or the nearby city of Guilin and, having now been there I have to say I agree. The landscape of YangShuo is similar to some others I have found during some of my other trips to GuiZhou (XinYi) or to Northern Vietnam (MaiChao) but still it is beautiful and amazing and I enjoyed it all the same. Tom continued his constant wow-ing but also, for variety, added "Jesus, just Jesus" by this point I was considering turning him into a drinking game. 

He was right of course, every corner revealed something slightly more spectacular that the one before, making it almost impossible to pick a favourite. We landed a little later than planned due to taking off later than planned, for what reason I have no idea, but our taxi driver had waited for us, which was lucky as the buses had all stopped. We were quickly checked in and tucked up in bed in a cosy 8 bed dorm on the fifth floor. 

By now the May Day holiday was in full swing and the tourist magnet of YangShuo was rammed with people, so we decided to go in the opposite direction and hired bikes at the crippling price of 20RMB (£2) for the day. 

We were loaned a very confusing and misleading map but it didn't really matter too much, there are only 2 main roads in and out so if its not one road, try the other. First we tried following the river upstream which worked for a while, right up until the point when the road and the river parted company and began heading in different directions. So we performed an about turn and tried the other road. Eventually we found the YiLong stream which seems to have become the go-to place for bamboo rafting. 

Hundreds of individual rafts floated past in a steady block of boats and people making us very grateful for our decision to get bikes instead. We sat on the side of the road and chilled in the sun for a bit before heading back to the hostel for an early-ish night. The hostel, as it turned out had a fantastic social courtyard area with an endless supply of cold beer, so several of our plans for an early night failed. Including this one!

Tom's wedding

Our second day had been put side for a day trip to the nearby Dragon Backbone (longji) rice terraces. We had looked into getting there on our own but it really isn't possible as a solo traveller in a day, and we were on a fairly tight time limit so taking longer wasn't an option. So we did the unthinkable and booked onto a tour! The tour itself wasn't too bad but did involve a lot of driving and a minority show from the Yao people. Tom was lucky enough to get pulled up on stage and get married to a complete stranger, all before having to sing in front of everyone. The whole show was designed around making a fool out of the men as in this particular group of people, WOMEN RULE! They do all of the work in the fields and the men raise the kids and do the cooking and cleaning, they get to pick/reject any man who dares to propose marriage with the option of pushing them out of bedroom windows if they don't get the point straight away. The Yao minority is famous in China for the womens hair. After 18 the never cut it and they wash their hair in rice starch water which they say is what keeps their hair black and why it never goes grey. 

Getting to the terraces is as easy as jumping in a cable car, long gone are the days of hiking to the top of the valley, in fact the pathway has been blocked off so that option no longer exists. Infuriatingly rain clouds had rolled in and we were going up the side of the valley in a cloud so thick we could just about see the car in front. It made for some very spooky pictures though. Once at the top we had an hour before needed to get back to the bus. 30 minutes of staring at cloud and suddenly everything cleared up. Out of nowhere hundreds of meters of terraces appeared before us where only a few minuted before had been a solid wall of cloud. At the top of the valley at the 'viewing area' there is literally a trail leading to a seating area with a small shop/restaurant. We were initially shocked with our being told we only had an hour before we needed to head back to the bus but actually it was plenty of time. There are no other paths or areas that you can explore, literally 40 meters of a pathway and thats it.  A couple thousand photos later we jumped back into the cable car and began our journey back to YangShuo. 

Our final day was the long awaited bamboo boat cruise. It turns out bamboo raft actually meant bamboo colour painted drain pipes with a motor but it was impressive none the less. The Li River bamboo raft cruise starts at the scene on the 20RMB notes and goes down stream for about 45 minutes stopping every now and again for photo oppertunities, some of which we bought. Our driver/Captain was a very shouty and angrry man until we bought some pictures and he cheered up considerably, we later realised he got about half of the price of the picture. For 20RMB we got taken further down the river and dropped off at a much more conveinent spot. I would say it was worth it. 
Our next stop is FengHuang Ancient city, near to ZhangJiaJie moutains. This is where our trip got a little more complicated as we could only book a train half way to ChangSha, the rest of the trip is a see what happens deal. Worst case; we stay in ChangSha a night and carry on to FengHuang in the morning. r