Day two: Guilin to Yangshuo
On Saturday morning we packed ourselves up again and boarded a riverboat for a four-hour cruise down the Lijiang for the small town of Yangshuo. What once was a fishing village surrounded by farmland is now a major tourist destination.
At Guiling Ma Tou we saw so many riverboats also being boarded and departing in chaos for Yangshuo. We were concerned that the river traffic would interfere with our experience, but it turned out we barely noticed the other boats once we were on our way. Of course, this isn't a peak time for tourists (which is oddly summer, when it hits 40 degrees every day).
Immediately we all started taking pictures. I mean, immediately. Where did all those boats go?
It was right around this time, seeing all the shadowing grey hills in the distance that I remarked they seemed to be silent relics of old gods that no one cared about anymore.
A lot of foreigners on our boat (the boat was about 1/3 foreigners and 2/3 Chinese) started taking pictures of this guy, what appeared to be a simple fisherman on a bamboo raft. I was one of them. All the way down the river we saw so many people who appeared to be living in a different century, washing clothes in the river or herding water buffalo. However, this is China, and right as I took this picture, I heard a familiar electronic sound coming from the direction of this raft. The fisherman reached in his coat pocket, put his hand to his ear, and said, "Wei?"
Rocks and water. Rocks and water.
This guy hitched his bamboo raft to the side of the boat and sold souvenirs to the first-level passengers.
This is the scene that is on the back of a 20 RMB bill.
After lunch we docked at Yangshuo and checked into our hotel. Yangshuo is full of small, clean, comfortable, inexpensive hotels. I can't imagine how much longer that will last, though, and how soon a company like Sheraton (which recently opened a 5-star resort on the crummy beach on the east side of Shenzhen) starts to build resorts here. However, the view from our little hotel was nice.
Yangshuo is an adorable town, at least in the tourist-heavy regions. We drove through other parts of it, and while it wasn't ugly, it wasn't distiguishable from a lot of other places we've been in China. But the beautiful parts were outstanding.
We just loved how cool and clean the air felt, filled with the fragrance still of Gui flowers.
Here's the view right in front of our hotel.
One famous street in Yangshuo is called West Street. For a lot of Chinese tourists this is a very exciting part of their Guilin/Yangshuo trip. This street is full of Western-ish restaurants, coffee shops, gift shops, and bars. Lots of bars.
Foreign adventure-types seeking "authentic China" (whatever that means)usually avoid West Street.
More pictures here.
At Guiling Ma Tou we saw so many riverboats also being boarded and departing in chaos for Yangshuo. We were concerned that the river traffic would interfere with our experience, but it turned out we barely noticed the other boats once we were on our way. Of course, this isn't a peak time for tourists (which is oddly summer, when it hits 40 degrees every day).
Immediately we all started taking pictures. I mean, immediately. Where did all those boats go?
It was right around this time, seeing all the shadowing grey hills in the distance that I remarked they seemed to be silent relics of old gods that no one cared about anymore.
A lot of foreigners on our boat (the boat was about 1/3 foreigners and 2/3 Chinese) started taking pictures of this guy, what appeared to be a simple fisherman on a bamboo raft. I was one of them. All the way down the river we saw so many people who appeared to be living in a different century, washing clothes in the river or herding water buffalo. However, this is China, and right as I took this picture, I heard a familiar electronic sound coming from the direction of this raft. The fisherman reached in his coat pocket, put his hand to his ear, and said, "Wei?"
Rocks and water. Rocks and water.
This guy hitched his bamboo raft to the side of the boat and sold souvenirs to the first-level passengers.
This is the scene that is on the back of a 20 RMB bill.
After lunch we docked at Yangshuo and checked into our hotel. Yangshuo is full of small, clean, comfortable, inexpensive hotels. I can't imagine how much longer that will last, though, and how soon a company like Sheraton (which recently opened a 5-star resort on the crummy beach on the east side of Shenzhen) starts to build resorts here. However, the view from our little hotel was nice.
Yangshuo is an adorable town, at least in the tourist-heavy regions. We drove through other parts of it, and while it wasn't ugly, it wasn't distiguishable from a lot of other places we've been in China. But the beautiful parts were outstanding.
We just loved how cool and clean the air felt, filled with the fragrance still of Gui flowers.
Here's the view right in front of our hotel.
One famous street in Yangshuo is called West Street. For a lot of Chinese tourists this is a very exciting part of their Guilin/Yangshuo trip. This street is full of Western-ish restaurants, coffee shops, gift shops, and bars. Lots of bars.
Foreign adventure-types seeking "authentic China" (whatever that means)usually avoid West Street.
More pictures here.
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