no tour thank you, we just want to walk around the town, no bike, no show, no raft, no boat, no taxi, nothing thanks
Friday, February 20th, 2009by Rach
Yangshuo, China
Tourists and touts, that’s Yangshuo, or so we had heard.
It’s not all wrong….you cannot walk down the main street without a very friendly local walking up to you wanting to strike up a conversation and out of the goodness of your heart you do so, only to discover they want to sell you a tour or rent you a bike or take you to the cormorant show or get you special tickets to the light show or take you on a boat or a bamboo raft……..everyone offers “a special price just for you, very cheap for you big family, some children ‘flee’, other people sell expensive but I do discount for you, here is my card, my friend, and where are you from? Oh I know people from New Zealand” and with that they whip out their notebook with a rave review from a fellow kiwi……
this isn’t the show – this is a freebie we spied emerging from under a bridge
You can’t walk down the main street without tripping across tourists either; many are white-faced, but the majority are Chinese. These ones stand out from the locals, because they tend to be herded behind a yellow flag in groups twice the size of ours, and they are all more citified in their dress.
But that’s not all there is to Yangshuo. This 300,000 person town is nestled in the foothills of soaring karst peaks. Quick science lesson: karst is formed when a soluble layer of bedrock is weathered away leaving behind sheer peaks of insoluble rock (lesson over – although here’s some extra for experts: usually it’s limestone, dolomite or marble, these ones are limestone). Everywhere you look there are near-vertical spikes of rock; it’s both majestic and claustrophobic.
The town itself is full of beautiful buildings – instead of grey concrete that litters the rest of the southern Chinese countryside, here there are timber facades and carved timber shutters, with cobbled streets and lantern street lights. There are also red lanterns hanging in just about every tree, and there are a couple of rivers and plenty of ponds doubling all this beauty in reflections. It might all be for the tourists, but it sure is pretty!
And it’s a welcome break to come across people who speak English too (although we eat at the cheap places locals seem to frequent and so we are still struggling away a bit with ordering food!)
Speaking of food, check out today’s lunch of stuffed pancake:
Rob was delighting in this spicy, delicious, crunchy and soft, hot concoction; I was taking pleasure from the number of women sitting and standing at street stalls, in shops, beside their wares-for-sale, even walking along the road….all knitting. Dozens of them. I realise many of our readers will share Rob’s interests far more than mine, but for You Knitters out there, this is THE place to feel *normal*. Almost every woman walks the street with long silver sticks poking out of the top of her bag. They sit round on stools in the freezing cold all rugged up in hand knit gear (of course) balling wool from hanks and casting on and doing intricate cables and laces and geometric designs without a hint of a pattern, all knit on four very very long silver needles, whole sweaters knit completely in the round. Very interesting for some of us! (To get that pic of the knitting circle on the left , I had to show off Tgirl4’s knitted hat/scarf and socks and pants and vest, and pretend I wanted a photo of her with the knitters – there were eight of them together on the side of the street, but most of them wanted payment for taking their picture!)
a satisfying day…and we had ourselves a wee spot of naughty fun:
yes, they both had cameras! one each!
rayres