Yangshuo

Well I've been here in Yangshuo for 2 weeks but I haven't really posted anything about my stay. There's been too much happening every day to have time to post about it so I'm going to try to give a quick recap of the past 2 weeks via a few posts.

The first weekend I was here I got "adopted" by a bunch of students from the school and did a whole bunch of things. On friday I took a bamboo raft ride down the Li River -


The limestone peaks all around are called Karsts. There's a ton of those that you can climb around here, and that's one of the many reasons Yangshuo is as popular as it is (in an obscure Chinese kind of way)

The raft ride lasted about 1 1/12 hours, and then we all went and got something to eat... somewhere... I don't remember. It was good.




Then on saturday we went to a place called Shangri-La. No, not THAT Shangri-La. This Shangri-La was the residence of an administrator of the Qing Dynasty (1644 - 1911) who was demoted and sent away from the imperial palace.










And I have to go sit in on a class, so that's all you get for now :)

Arrival in Yangshuo

I knew the bus was ghetto.

After rumbling along for 2 hours, the bus stops on the edge of a town (which I can only hope is Yangshuo) and drops me off. Yeah. Just me. EVERYONE else stays on the bus. And I'm definitely not at any bus station like I should have been.

.... so ....

I decided to start walking. I found a hotel and went in and managed to convey that I wanted to use their phone. I then called my contact in Yangshuo to let him know I was there, I thought. Turns out I was. After 10 minutes or so my contact "Johnny" arrives riding a small scooter and gives me a ride to the Yanshuo ZhuoYue English school, where I'll have free accomodation and food for volunteering 2 hours a day. Sweet.

Guilin to Yangshuo

Not much to say here. I went to the bus station in the morning, and was kind of wandering around until a younger Chinese guy (early 20's) approached me and asked me where I was trying to go.

I wheeled around and punched him square in the face.

That's what I thought about doing. Who in the world approaches random strangers and tries to help them out?!? That's just stupid... But he did help me buy a ticket for Yangshuo on what must have been the oldest bus on the lot.

I actually wasn't sure that I WAS on the right bus for Yangshuo because I was the ONLY person on the bus when it left the station. Really.



But we proceeded to spend the next hour driving through every street in the city at no more than 5 mph trolling for potential riders. We eventually did fill up the bus and headed on our way.

It was a 2 hour bus ride, and would have felt arduous where it not for the fact that it was beautifully sunny and they played Rambo 3 and the new Rambo on DVD. Yes, welcome to rural China.

Arriving In Guilin

Guilin as described online

Guilin in it's TRUE beauty













Guilin was so-so. I took a 40 min bus ride from the airport to the middle of the city, where I was promptly left. It was about 9:00 PM, and I had no idea where my hotel was. And neither did the cabbies for that matter. As soon as I stepped of the bus (I was the only one off in this area) I was surrounded by 10 random people who started crowding in much too close for comfort. I then had to take out my laptop in front of them all to show them the Chinese for the hotel I was staying at.
I was thinking I was going to have to start fighting to keep my stuff from being stolen, until I saw one one of them point to my big duffle and mumble "military" in poor English. At that point they ALL looked at me in the face and I made REALLY good eye contact with all of them.

And I got a cab to my hotel :)