Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon

They say that this is where the Chinese go on holiday, as it is one of the most beautiful spots in all of China… but for us it was a mixed bag. I shall explain.

Undoubtedly stunning

The Guangxi province has countryside is like nowhere else I’ve seen. The hills rise out of the ground like short fat seismic waves and are bedecked with green coats and bare rocks… and city of Guilin sits plump in the middle of it. Guilin is a more chic city, with it’s boutiques and western style restaurants, but also where you can get a dozen scallops topped with rice noodles and garlic for £4.50... bargain! As part of this meal we ordered fried eggplant (aubergine if you’re British), and you’d think you’d get just that, but it came covered in minced pork! Very strange but we were later told by other travellers that this is common for veg to be doused in meat… a fair warning to any hopeful vegetarian travellers to China.

As we had little time in this city, we did what most people do, visit the Dragon Backbone rice terraces that give stunning panoramic views of the incredible ingenuity of human agricultural cultivation. These rice fields are built into the hillsides as far as the eye can see… only when we arrived after a 3 hour car ride we could only see 20 feet in in front of our faces because of thick fog. That or I guess the ‘dragon’ was ‘in a huff’ because we were scrambling over his back, thus staying very well hidden from us. However it wasn’t an entirely wasted escapade, it was actually rather fun guessing our way through what we could see of the fields and navigating the winding paths in local villages that huddled around the feet of the dragon.

Entering the dragon

Moving (1 hour) south to Yangshou. If you go to Guilin it would be because you are going onto (or coming from) here, the real jewel. This habitation has more of than seaside town happy-go-lucky feel, with the locals lining the sidewalks, selling their wares or else playing cards in the gorgeous autumn heat. Tourists still abound but were soaking up the chilled ambience, in contrast to the ‘yodelling’ types on Mt. Huangshan. The only downer was the incessant hawkers offering ‘bamboo boats’ with an unrivalled passion from what we’ve previously experienced.

Yangshuo from above

We didn’t take their offer, but instead opted for the noble bicycle to take us along the rivers that meandered through the undulating lush landscape. With the 2 days at our disposal we made work covering the surrounding area and include a walk up one of the more famous peaks (shaped like a moon).

Yulong River and bamboo boats

Not to say it wasn’t all amazing, parts of the roads certainly got the bones jangling, and the maps we were give were neither to scale or with sufficient detail, so we had to do part guess work and part asking for directions from local villagers along the way (though they couldn’t speak English, but knew the names of the popular sites and were happy to point us in the right direction). All part of the fun experience.

More beautiful countryside

Oh and if you’d think that the beautiful scenery would detract Chinese tourists from being obsessed by Caucasians, you’d be very wrong. At one particularly nice bridge crossing, we pause to take a few pictures amongst the local tourists, only to soon find their cameras were focusing on us! Tres awkward, so we high-tailed it out of there pronto. Note: if you ever want to be famous, try holidaying in China and see how you feel afterwards.

All that aside, it was such an incredible time in Yangshuo, perfected by our lodgings (another home-stay accommodation), which fed us (very well) and the family man (Wei) gave us a spontaneous lesson in Tai Chi. Epic (though for a first attempt, I obviously did a poor job of it, but was interesting to learn the background and basics of this ancient martial art).

Fun times.