Yangshuo
Approaching the city of Guilin (“gway-lin”) in the southern province of Guangxi, you begin to see the area’s distinctive landscape. “Karst formations” is the name given to them and I suppose if you’re a geologist you know what that means. They are limestone hills, pillars and cliffs that rise sharply from the earth out of nowhere. The difference between these and garden-variety hills is the degree of contrast between the karst and the surrounding landscape. They don’t “roll”, they just jut. It is sort of like take only the peaks from the top of a mountain range and dropping them over the prairies so that they are not close enough to touch each other, but are in close quarters nonetheless. They are mostly tree-covered, but at times are too steep for vegetation. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.
The town of Yangshuo is a backpacker getaway and also supports a fair bit of mass tourism as well. Every other building is a hotel, and the downtown section is a series of pedestrian-only streets, hostels and cafes. There is a lot of competition, so rooms are cheap and you get a lot of amenities, like AC, free Internet, and cheap bike rentals. The food, though, is pricey, but you have many Western dishes. Decent if unspectacular pizzas are found all over town (they need to work on the crust – a little salt, pepper, herbs and cornmeal would go a long way). Apple pie, cheesecake and good coffee are all widely available. One place had gambas al ajillo (garlic prawns), which is one of my favourite dishes. It was a little simplistic compared with the version I make at home, but hit the spot. Pineapple chicken, Yangshuo beer fish, lemon cheesecake, and beef with onion are some of the things I had. The Chinese food comes in much greater variety in the south, too. I passed on the dog hotpot and braised bamboo rat, though. They still have quality standbys like sauteed spinach with garlic and wonton soup, too. The wonton soup in China is pretty much how I make it back home, with spices, herbs and veggies, as opposed to the flavourless broth found in Canadian restaurants.
In Search of Moon Hill
For breakfast, a trip to the Chinese market yields rice dough fritters with nutmeg and sugar inside, and more hot soy milk. I also enjoyed some Yunnan coffee. I can thank Starbucks for that one – I think nothing of spending $1.50 on a cup of coffee but consistently balk at paying the same price for a decent tea like pu ehr or oolong. I’m told there is a lot of good tea in Yunnan, which is good because for the most part, finding good Chinese tea is easier in Toronto than in China.
For those not lounging around town, many excursions to the countryside exist. Expensive kayaking, spelunking and other trips can be arranged. Better still, rent a bike and head out to the farmer’s paths. The karst formations are absolutely wonderful, and because of the pollution the best way to see them is to get up close and personal. (I do have some photos, but not many because of all the haze.)
I took a ride to the town of Fuli to check out their market. It was a typical market and although I love browsing, I hate attempting to buy things because of the bargaining. Anything I buy – peanuts or sugar or tea – will be in a fairly small quantity. So the vendor doesn’t get much out of me by offering the “local” price. They aren’t so flexible as a result, but I’m not stupid and sometimes it’s tough to close a sale. I know things are cheaper here than back home, but some vendors refuse to go lower than the Canadian price. I’ve walked away more than once.
After lunch, I headed to the famous Moon Hill. I took a semi-wrong road and ended up on a farmer’s path through fields and rice paddies. This is why they rent out mountain bikes. I finally got back to the road and kept going. I never quite made it to Moon Hill. I determined that I was too tired to climb it anyway, and I’d be just as well off to look at all the other hills nearby, so that is what I did.
Still in Search of Moon Hill
The next day I was off to make a simple bike ride up the Yulong River to the 15th century Dragon Bridge, one of China’s largest medieval bridges.
Oh, were it that simple. I had two maps to work with, but neither of them were particulary clear with respect to bike paths. There was a very narrow farmer’s track which was not passable on a bicycle because of steep declines on either side. So I went off to find the bike path that started at the back of…Moon Hill.
So for the second straight day, I failed to find Moon Hill and ended up in the dusty pitstop called Puyi, which is thirty kilometres away from the Dragon Bridge. I found a bike path and decided I’d take that back. Of course, this was not on the map, but I got a little lucky. It went 4km into the hills, to a pair of hamlets where cars cannot reach. Save for a few white tile buidings, these were plucked straight from a Pearl S. Buck novel.
I pedalled past fish farms, rice paddies, banana palms and bamboo stands. Old women walked hunched over, their backs broken from a lifetime of labour. Men in dirty cotton clothes and cymbal-shaped straw hats hauled water in pairs of buckets, which were held over their shoulders by a plank of bamboo. Younger adults returned from the market in Puyi with vegetables, empty chicken cages and household goods.
Thankfully, after 4km the road ended, or I may have become completely lost. It was a quick downhill ride to the main road. By the time I got back to Yangshuo I’d hauled 40km for the second straight day and my legs were tapped. It has, however, rekindled a desire to get a mountain bike out to the woods when I get back home. Just another positive to insert itself permanently in me as a result of this trip.
Tags: China, Travel, Yangshuo
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