Yangshuo & Guilin

September 28, 2017

Yangshuo & Guilin

The best view in Yangshuo

It has been a crazy couple of days- amazing, but crazy. I think those words describe every single day in China. Amazing and crazy. This past weekend, we had a few days off at the school, so we were able to travel to Yangshuo and Guilin. These were both places that I was really excited to visit. I honestly was worried that Yangshuo wouldn’t live up to the hype that surrounded it. Luckily, it definitely lived up to the expectation I had in my head. In fact, we loved it so much that we are going to make another trip to Yangshuo and Guilin before leaving China. There are other reasons for us to visit again, but I’ll get to that later.

We left our apartment at 4 a.m. on Friday morning. Our little group was able to get to the train station with relative ease. Upon boarding the train, we discovered that we were actually boarding a bullet train. We had no idea that we were going on a speed train until we saw it. Jordan and I had assumed that the train would resemble some of the trains we rode while in Russia. I anticipated an old soviet era steam train to pull into the station, not a deluxe, high tech train. The train was super cool. It was pretty smooth to ride on, and obviously went super fast. There was a screen that displayed the train’s speed as we rode. We typically stayed within 140-150 mph.

Our little group arrived in Yangshuo in the early afternoon. Finding the hostel was a bit of an adventure, but after about an hour of wandering, we made it. The hostel was nice, and the staff was wonderful. Three girls in our group opted to do some white water rafting. The rest of us decided to wander the city, and take in the sights. We had such a great day! We were able to explore the picturesque, unique parts of the city, and take photos. Additionally, our group did some souvenir shopping, which was fun. Everything in Yangshuo is beautiful. Admittedly, it’s a bit run down, but that is a common theme in China. Despite the crumbling façade of most of the buildings, the city carries a quaint, beautiful element. Perhaps it is the outstanding mountains, or the gently drifting Li River, or the typical Chinese architecture that makes Yangshuo so amazing. Whatever it is, I love it. It’s a relaxing place.

View from the roof of our hostel

One area that we found was an interesting park. It wasn’t interesting, in the way of it’s flora or fauna, or in its sculptures. It was interesting because of the people. This park was filled with the elderly. All of them were playing games, singing karaoke, practicing tai chi, or practicing music. Each one of them had a childlike light in their eyes. We even had the joy of watching two older women play on a teeter-totter together. They giggled and laughed the whole time, completely uncaring as to what others thought of them. Groups of old women and men brought their own karaoke machines, and sang to their hearts’ delight. Most of the singing was off-key, but they didn’t care. Those people cared only that they were having fun. It was an amazing scene to observe.

The next day was a bit more eventful. Our group decided to climb up a mountain, to the local TV tower. From the TV tower, you are able to get an aerial view of Yangshuo. In order to get to the tower, you have to follow a very specific set of instructions. Luckily, ILP has a post on their blog, all about how you can reach it. The only way to reach the tower is through a labyrinth of apartment buildings and small alleys. All of the locals know that the only reason a group of Americans would be in that area is to go to the TV tower. As such, they all point you in the right direction.

See that tower on top of that mountain? That is where we climbed to.

After making our way through the little alleys, we found the trailhead. The hike was steep the whole way up. The trail consisted of nothing more than a crumbling, slippery staircase. For those who don’t know, or didn’t realize, Yangshuo is in southern China, so the temperatures are incredibly hot and humid. We lucked out, by having a great deal of cloud-cover, which kept the temperatures reasonable. However, we still were so sweaty that our sweat soaked all the way through our clothing. Jordan was able to ring water out of his shirt at the end of our hike. Additionally, it was so muggy that Jordan’s hands started to prune.

Start of the trail

Halfway up the mountain

The hike was steep, but overall, not too challenging. We hiked to the top in an hour and a half, and were able to go back down to the bottom within 45 minutes.

At the top of the mountain, we found a locked gate, which we had expected. The only way to get through the gate to see the viewpoint is by bribing the man who lives and works at the TV tower. After a few minutes of rattling the metal gate, a haggard, shirtless Chinese man exited his home, and met us at the gate. He told us that he wanted 5 Yuan per person in order to let us in. We quickly obliged, and were let into the gates. Because it was such a foggy, cloudy day, we weren’t able to see the valley too clearly, but we still loved the view. It didn’t capture well on camera, but we didn’t care. We had climbed a mountain, and were able to see the entire valley of Yangshuo. It was beautiful. After taking a few photos, we started back down the mountain. A short ways down the hill, we came across another amazing viewpoint. The clouds had parted slightly, giving us a beautiful photo opportunity.

This is the guy you have to bribe
Not a great pic, but you get the idea

The misty mountains of Yangshuo

We survived the hike

Jordan, Madison, Madi, Mekel, Natalie, Laurel

We loved the hike to the TV tower in Yangshuo. It was hot, sweaty, and uncomfortable, but was still an amazing experience.

Upon reaching the city after the hike, we were still drenched in sweat. Needing a quick cool-down, we sought out smoothies. That was one of the most rewarding smoothies I’ve ever had in my life. It wasn’t particularly special, but it was delightful in the moment.

The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent casually wandering through Yangshuo. We enjoyed having some downtime. During our vacations, Jordan and I have a tendency to overload our schedules, never leaving enough time to relax, and have a casual day. We took full advantage of that in Yangshuo. With how crazy our lives have been since arriving in China, we were more than happy to sit back and relax for an afternoon.

That evening, our little travel group decided to go to a little shop where the fish eat the dead skin off of your feet. It was one of the weirdest and funniest things I’ve ever done. I have some thick callouses on my feet, so I was interested to see if the fish would actually make a difference on them. The whole experience tickled so much! It feels like a bunch of cats licking your feet. It’s so weird. At the end of our time, I noticed that there was a dead fish at the bottom of my tank, and the other fish were nibbling on it. Seeing that freaked me out a bit, and I was suddenly worried that I would get a weird fish foot disease. Luckily, it has been nearly a week, and my feet are just fine. My feet are also much softer, so the nibble fish actually did their job.

The next morning, we checked out of our hostel, and headed to Guilin to see the rice terraces. Guilin is renowned for its beautiful rice terrace fields. Since information about China is minimal, we blindly went to Guilin, hoping to book a tour to the terraces through our hostel. Upon arriving, at the Ming Palace International Youth Hostel, we asked the receptionist if it would be possible to book a tour to the terraces for that evening. Bear in mind that we checked into the hostel at noon, so this didn’t seem like an unreasonable request. The hostel receptionist immediately started laughing at us. She then promptly told us that it would be impossible for us to go to the terraces because they leave in the morning, and that we made terrible travel plans. She continued laughing and acting condescending toward us for not knowing that it takes three hours to get to the terraces. The receptionist told us that we wouldn’t get to see anything in Guilin; basically telling us that we were stupid for not knowing about Guilin, and the way things work there. All six of us were irritated, upset, and insulted after the whole encounter.

Dejectedly, we climbed six flights of stairs to go to our room. The room was also terrible. As we entered the room, we found the maid still “cleaning” the room. I put that in quotes, because nothing about that room was clean. The room was dirty, covered in mold, and most of the doors and beds were broken. The mattresses were stained. The bedding was stained.

MOLD!

The bathroom was its own nightmare. The bathroom door was broken, and the lock on that door was broken. A slightly frosted glass window was the only divider between the bedroom and the bathroom. It is also important to note, that this room is a mixed dorm room, with six beds. This means that if you don’t rent out all of the beds, like we did, you could have random people sharing the room with you. Normally, sharing a hostel room isn’t a huge deal. I’ve done it before when we were traveling through Russia and Scandinavia. My issue is that if I was sharing the room with strangers, I would NOT feel safe with a broken door, and a semi-private bathroom. No part of that is safe.

The interesting part of this whole thing is that Ming Palace had a 9 star rating on Hostelworld.com. Maybe we had a fluke experience, but we didn’t enjoy our time there. My review of Ming Palace on Hostelworld is the lowest of their hostel. 4 stars.

Made friends with a group of local girls

Despite the disappointment of not being able to go to the rice terraces, and the frustrations of our crappy hostel, we all tried to keep our spirits up. Since we didn’t know what to do or see in Guilin, we decided to book a night boat tour through Guilin. Throughout the day, we wandered aimlessly through the city. We spent about an hour at the river, enjoying the scenery, and some nice people watching. However, our stroll along the river ended abruptly as we encountered a dead body. Plot twist! Luckily, we weren’t the ones to discover the body. Some men were pulling his body from the river. A van and security guard showed up shortly after. They then zipped him into a body bag, and literally tossed him into the van. It was a very disturbing thing to witness.

Nice day at the river

Terrible thing to see

Since we were all a bit shaken from seeing a dead man, we went on a hunt for smoothies and ice cream. This hunt took a very long time. It also resulted in a few purchases of crappy smoothies, before we found anything that tasted remotely good. After enjoying some decent ice cream cones at Burger King, it was nearly time for our boat tour.

We had low expectations for the boat cruise. That low expectation could be due to the fact that our whole experience in Guilin had been a bit weird. The boat tour ended up being really cool, though. Although the whole tour was narrated in Chinese, we understood that the tour led us through Chinese history. Every so often, the boat would stop at a dock, where men and women would perform some kind of dance that was traditional to that era. Interestingly, many of the performances had elements that I would typically associate with Native Americans and with Polynesian culture. There were totem poles; there were grass skirts and Polynesian style dancing. Overall, it was a fun experience, and made our time in Guilin feel meaningful.

She wanted a picture with Elsa

Although Guilin was somewhat disappointing, Yangshuo was absolutely amazing. I loved seeing the whimsical mountains, and the lush greenery. The city was charming. The people were sweet. Almost everything about that vacation was dreamlike in its beauty. Despite our disappointment in not seeing the terraces, we are planning on returning to Guilin specifically for the terraces. Since we only live a few hours away, this is a completely realistic goal. I’m excited for our future travels, and am thankful that I have the opportunity to experience so much of what China has to offer.

As a side note, we are about to leave for yet another vacation! This next vacation will be taking us to Beijing, where we will see the Great Wall and the Forbidden City, to Xi’an (Pronounced She – On), where we will see the Terra Cotta Warriors, and to Chengdu, where we will visit Mount Emei, and visit the Giant Buddha at Leshan. Can’t wait to tell you all about it!