Yangshuo was a funny place, it was ultra touristy, but incredibly beautiful. Also despite being so touristy it still held a certain charm - it might have been because most of the tourism was catered around Chinese people rather than ourselves. That said, the streets got so busy at night it was insane - thankfully we had a pretty sweet rooftop bar to retreat to serving up some tasty, cheap local beer.
Hungover and only having had 5 hours sleep wasn't the ideal way to start the next day since we had a 24km trek to be getting on with. Still, there we were - the 2am BigMac the night before must have done the trick.
We set off by getting a bus about 90 minutes up the Li river to the starting point where we had to cross the river to get going. We approached the first boat we saw who offered us a price of 10 Yuan each to cross, this seemed expensive (about £1) and was more than the prices we had been told. As a rule not accepting your first price is a good one, especially when there was an abundance of boats, with their owners sat doing absolutely nothing. We walked to ask another one who basically refused to take us, we went around a bit more and the answer was the same - nobody would take us. Dejected, we returned to the first boat, this time prepared to pay his price. To our surprise this boat wouldn't take us now either. Bare in mind nobody at all spoke any English, so it was really hard to figure out what the hell was going on. Eventually after about 30 minutes of trying we figured out that the crossing was closed for an hour and a half because of all the ferries going down the river from Guilin to Yangshuo. This explained the inflated price before because it was just before the crossing closed.
Part of me couldn't help feeling we'd really screwed ourselves over by haggling since we missed our window to get across and now had to sit around doing nothing for an hour. We were also aware of the fact that the trek would take a while and the last bus back to town was at 6.30 - we'd have to keep a good pace. There was a bigger part of me that definitely felt the Lonely Planet had really screwed us over by not putting that information in - it seems like a pretty big ommision, but then that wouldn't be the first time.
Even more dejected, we sat and waited. In normal circumstances I'm confident someone would have taken us across the river but there was a massive police boat sat by the side of the river, and another one in the middle of the river. Somebody else did offer to take us across the river, for 100 yuan - about £10. He was sat with some police while he offered us this, so presumably some of that would go to them, not happening though. He proceeded to start mocking us by offering us a plastic bag and making swimming motions with his arms. He and his pals all had a hearty giggle, we weren't amused.
We also watched some people coming back across the river but the same drivers wouldn't take us the other way. There was definitely a way to make it happen, language was certainly the barrier here though. Eventually some other westerners turned up and we collaborated. We explained about the guy offering the crossing for 100 yuan. Now with the masses we were prepared to pay his dirty money - we just wanted to get across. I said I'd go and ask the guy again, to which one of our new amigos asked me if I spoke Mandarin - obviously I don't, but it turns out he did. Now we're rolling. Eventually, we sorted out a boat to take us all across for 15 yuan each, more than we wanted but again at this point we just wanted to get across. Sadly, our plans were thwarted again when we came to a standoff on the boat. They weren't prepared to leave without all of our money up front, we weren't prepared to pay until we were on the other side. The boat people got angry, so we got off the boat. Again it's the difficult position between being stubborn and naive - I could just see them taking the money and not moving until midday, at which point the crossing would reopen and we could cross with anyone else for cheaper. As it turned out the boat did cross as soon as we got off it, so we watched them unloading their supplies from the wrong side of the river.
We were resigned to waiting til midday at this point and that is what we did. Eventually, just before midday we crossed for 10 yuan each, the same price we could have crossed for an hour and a half earlier. This part of the story is long and drawn out because so was that part of our day. Maybe now that this part of the story is over, you have an idea of the relief we felt to finally get across the river?
Anyway, we were off. We would have to cross the river another two times on our journey, the first of which was only about half an hour after the initial crossing. The walk itself was incredible. The scenery was beautiful, maybe the best I've seen in all of Asia. It was really hot and incredibly humid, but manageable - though because of the season the visibility wasn't great - I'd love to go back when the sky was clear, and I imagine I definitely will.
We carried on with our walk when we were stopped by a local woman trying to get us to come and eat some food, we presumed, at her restaurant. Thankfully we had bumped into the other group with the Mandarin speaker at this point because the woman was a farmer who took us back to her farmhouse and was going to cook us something up for a small fee. It wasn't an ideal situation, and we'd have never got through it without our translating friend, but there weren't many (any) restaurants about so we took the plunge. She killed a chicken for us and cooked up a couple of other dishes. It was a great experience to be honest - real local food with real local people, we've not been too far off the tourist path really so it's not something we encounter often. The only annoyance was that killing, plucking and cooking a chicken took a fair amount of time and we were now well of the pace. If we were to make the last bus we would need to pick up the pace again - if the walk was 24km that is, Lonely Planet we're looking at you.
Turned out we made it back with plenty of time, we reckon the walk was more like 15km than 24km - though we had a little help from our last boat driver who took us from before the actual crossing (though we didn't realise that at the time), so skipped out about half an hour or so. We passed some amazing scenery, saw some goats being herded and some donkeys carrying lots of things. It was a good day. We rewarded ourselves with some pizza, and plenty of beer.
The following day we got back out there, this time on bikes. There was another route suggested in the Lonely Planet, apparently a 10km cycle path up the Yulong river to a bridge called Dragon bridge. It wasn't really about going to see the bridge, more that the scenery was again meant to be great - which it was. We set off slightly later than the day before (though again hungover). We didn't follow the path exactly and ended up crossing through loads of little villages and rice fields that we probably weren't supposed to, but the cycle to dragon bridge was more like 20km than 10km. Lonely Planet, you have excelled yourself once more.
When we got to the bridge we jumped off it a couple of times - this was alot higher than the boat in Halong bay and was actually pretty scary. I think about 8m altogether, these things are always higher when you're actually up there though. Afterwards we had some lunch down on the river when a boat passed by with a newlywed couple on it. The groom was completely disinterested shoulders slumped, looking at the ground smoking a cigarette with his back to the bride. It was so bizarre. The picture is pretty amusing though.
After that we headed back for some more food and beers, a good days work.
The next day we didn't do alot other than kick around and sort out a few bits and pieces and get ready for that nights journey. I was heading to Hong Kong, Matt and Dave were heading to Beijing. Benson would stay in Yangshuo for a few days before heading to Kunming. Yangshuo was a definite highlight of the trip so far. The town itself was really great as well. Good times all round.
This song is by Jonsi, the singer from Sigur Ros. We saw him last year in London and the show was one of the best I've ever been to. They put loads of work into the visual aspect of the show - well worth checking out some videos if you're so inclined. His album is great too.
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