Yangshuo

Arriving in Yangshuo

It was a 3 hour bus ride from Longsheng, back south past Guilin, and into to the Yangshuo valley, where the Jingbao and Lijiang Rivers meet.

This is the spot people where the scenic dome-like mountains reside, the ones people typically think of when Guilin is mentioned. We arrived the night of the 13th, near dark, and only had time to make it up to the hotel room, which was at the top of a long and narrow alley that wound in and out of buildings to get to the top. It was pretty surreal.  I was lucky to have one of, if not the highest, views in the city:

 

River Cruise

Honestly, I forget which river this was on. I assume Lijiang, but I’m not 100% sure. At this point I’m pretty sick. It’s a bad cold. Jing is trying to help by making some nasty herbal tea, but the taste just makes me feel worse. She arranges the boat cruise by text only. This is when I realize that China is just way ahead of us when it cones to doing business through our phones. With a series of texts, she schedules it, gets location info, and alerts the guy when we arrive.

The weather is mostly cloudy with occasional patches of sunlight and blue skies and many times where it just starts to sprinkle and worry me that we will get soaked.  The following are just some of the things along the way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The boats are either long bamboo stalks, or in this case, PVC pipes strapped together with chairs and a motor.

 

 

 

 

Credit to Jing for this footage. The flickering is due to the vibrations from the raft motor.

 

 

 

 

This mountain looks like it has a herd of horses on its face.

 

Along the shores are little communities of vendors selling snacks. We stopped at a few. Nothing I would eat, but nice opportunities to get away from the droning motor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When the ride was over, we were a bit far from where the ride would pick us up. I think the plan was for us to walk through a section of town that was set up for tourism. I’m not sure if it was the time of day or what, but it was desolate. The walk was long and eerie.

 

 

 

Around Zije and West Pedestrian Streets

This is the touristy part of town, with West street named for all the westerners that can be found there. You can see how busy it is in the day, getting completely packed by nightfall. There are a lot of shops, street vendors, restaurants, cafes, and hostels. There’s even a few banks and a KFC.
We explored a bit looking for a bite to eat.

 

Local noodles

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After I snapped this photo, this guy demanded I pay him.

 

 

 

 

We settled on this Tex-Mex place – I was curious to see what they considered to be American Cuisine – It was … okay.

Dream like Lijiang Theatre

We attended this show which was an open theater and performances done in the river water with the mountains lit up in the background. There were hundreds of performers.

 

 

 

 

 

Grabbed a late night snack and then went right to bed. I’m was just too sick to explore the streets at night. Here’s one shot of the streets at night. More on a later day.

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Local noodle dish we ate.