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Scenes from Yangshuo
We got up a little after 6:00, showered, finished packing & crossed the street with breakfast with “the noodle people.” Dan had lunch here most days last year, and had told them he’d bring his family by to meet them. We had a delicious breakfast of noodles in broth before trekking to the bus station for our ride to Guilin (“Gway-leen”). Dan had warned that the distance was short but the trip long – 5 ½ to 6 hours. The first hour was on good road. Then it went away. Literally. They are apparently replacing the old country road with a bigger one, but in the meantime have demolished at least half of the old road without replacing it with paved road. So, much of the trip was crawling over marginally packed, rutted earth strewn with boulders, which I presume will be foundation for the new road (I saw a guy with a sledgehammer busting these… into gravel?!). Traffic was still heavy, as cars, buses, trucks, 3-wheelers & motorcycles threaded their way at random across the dirt, driving on the left & right of oncoming traffic to maximize the chance of passing slower vehicles.
Occasionally, we would get short stretches of pavement and get out of the clouds of dust. And for the final hour, we were past the construction. We also saw a sight that I would have expected to see more frequently. A car had struck a woman on a motorized 3-wheeler with enough impact to rip the bumper off the car. She lay unconscious (or worse) under her vehicle, surrounded by a crowd of country bystanders. One at least was on a cell phone, presumably calling paramedics. Our bus – and all the other vehicles – simply drove around the carnage without stopping.
We arrived at the Guilin bus station around 2:00, exactly as Dan had anticipated. He had a craving for McDonalds, so we hiked a good ways with luggage in tow for sandwiches, fries and Cokes. Then a cab back to the train station, where Dan booked a sleeper car for our trip to Shenzhen and the Hong Kong border crossing. The earliest date we could get was the 4th (we had hoped to travel the night of the 3rd). Then a bus to Yangshuo. The scenery here is absolutely spectacular: like Jiuyi, but more so, with what Judy has been calling “Dr. Seuss mountains.” Karsts of limestone burst from the ground as if they had sprouted from the plain like cornstalks.
The town of Yangshuo itself is modest in size, and the center is a western tourist’s Mecca – in fact, the main drag of shops, hotels and restaurants is named West Street, and not for its geographic location. For all Yangshuo pics, click here: http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=172069162/a=102868539_102868539/t_=102868539.
We got up a little after 6:00, showered, finished packing & crossed the street with breakfast with “the noodle people.” Dan had lunch here most days last year, and had told them he’d bring his family by to meet them. We had a delicious breakfast of noodles in broth before trekking to the bus station for our ride to Guilin (“Gway-leen”). Dan had warned that the distance was short but the trip long – 5 ½ to 6 hours. The first hour was on good road. Then it went away. Literally. They are apparently replacing the old country road with a bigger one, but in the meantime have demolished at least half of the old road without replacing it with paved road. So, much of the trip was crawling over marginally packed, rutted earth strewn with boulders, which I presume will be foundation for the new road (I saw a guy with a sledgehammer busting these… into gravel?!). Traffic was still heavy, as cars, buses, trucks, 3-wheelers & motorcycles threaded their way at random across the dirt, driving on the left & right of oncoming traffic to maximize the chance of passing slower vehicles.
Occasionally, we would get short stretches of pavement and get out of the clouds of dust. And for the final hour, we were past the construction. We also saw a sight that I would have expected to see more frequently. A car had struck a woman on a motorized 3-wheeler with enough impact to rip the bumper off the car. She lay unconscious (or worse) under her vehicle, surrounded by a crowd of country bystanders. One at least was on a cell phone, presumably calling paramedics. Our bus – and all the other vehicles – simply drove around the carnage without stopping.
We arrived at the Guilin bus station around 2:00, exactly as Dan had anticipated. He had a craving for McDonalds, so we hiked a good ways with luggage in tow for sandwiches, fries and Cokes. Then a cab back to the train station, where Dan booked a sleeper car for our trip to Shenzhen and the Hong Kong border crossing. The earliest date we could get was the 4th (we had hoped to travel the night of the 3rd). Then a bus to Yangshuo. The scenery here is absolutely spectacular: like Jiuyi, but more so, with what Judy has been calling “Dr. Seuss mountains.” Karsts of limestone burst from the ground as if they had sprouted from the plain like cornstalks.
The town of Yangshuo itself is modest in size, and the center is a western tourist’s Mecca – in fact, the main drag of shops, hotels and restaurants is named West Street, and not for its geographic location. For all Yangshuo pics, click here: http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=172069162/a=102868539_102868539/t_=102868539.
We tried to get into a place that Dan had stayed before, but they were full. So was the next stop, but the proprietor there made a call to another hotel where we could get two doubles for 180 yuan each, and she led us there. The other hotel is one of her properties, run (as far as we can tell) by her teenage kids, who mostly sit in the lobby and play on the internet. It’s called the Xi Ha Hotel, and is located on a back alley off of West Street and less than 100m from the Lijiang River. The rooms are nice, with balconies overlooking the alley: a good place to dry rinsed-out clothes.
After checking in, we went to dinner at a very western restaurant a block away. Nobody was very hungry: Judy got some spring rolls, Adam & I got dumplings, Dan a salad, and Chris had a small pizza. Afterwards, we wandered around and ended up getting some night snacks at Yangshuo Square, where (like most towns) street vendors set up food stands and tables in the evening.
To get a sense of just how spicy the food can be, a breeze that simply blew some wok smoke our way set all 5 of us coughing as our lungs were burned by the spice. Dan said that he’d got an open burn on his face once from smoke from a wok in Ningyuan.
We parted then – Judy & I to window shop at some stalls, and the boys to bar-hop.
After checking in, we went to dinner at a very western restaurant a block away. Nobody was very hungry: Judy got some spring rolls, Adam & I got dumplings, Dan a salad, and Chris had a small pizza. Afterwards, we wandered around and ended up getting some night snacks at Yangshuo Square, where (like most towns) street vendors set up food stands and tables in the evening.
To get a sense of just how spicy the food can be, a breeze that simply blew some wok smoke our way set all 5 of us coughing as our lungs were burned by the spice. Dan said that he’d got an open burn on his face once from smoke from a wok in Ningyuan.
We parted then – Judy & I to window shop at some stalls, and the boys to bar-hop.
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