Yangshuo and Guilin Part 2

Here’s the next installment of our trip covering Monday and Tuesday, the 23rd and 24th. Monday we decided to rent bikes to ride south of Yangshuo into the countryside. There are tons of shops renting out bikes in town, so you just have to find the ones that are the least beat up for the best price. We also needed to find bikes that we could fit on, which was troublesome because every place had the same bikes to choose from. After finding two suitable bikes we went on our way. We weren’t even outside of town before it felt like my pedal was going to fall off at any moment. We decided to pull into a little guy’s motorcycle shop to see if he could fix it. He was asleep when we got there, but his daughter woke him up for us. He didn’t really do much except bang on the nuts with his hammer and screwdriver. It was a little better, but you can only expect so much out of China.

Our first stop on our bike trip was at the Big Banyan Tree. The Tree is a huge twisted tree that is 1500 years old. Near the tree there was a cool rock structure and a small minority town. Around the town there were lots of old ladies selling stuff. Almost all of them were selling these hand made sandals that were obviously too small for either of us. The ladies didn’t believe us when we said they were too big even though we showed us our feet. It was almost as if they were in denial that feet this big even existed. They got my dad to try them on and when they actually saw they weren’t even close to fitting, they all started cracking up. They didn’t let us leave peacefully though. My dad showed interest in some coins and all of a sudden all the ladies whipped some out and surrounded him. He bought some and we got out of there.

Next stop was Moon Hill. When we were almost to the park entrance, two ladies with coolers hanging over their shoulders started chasing after us. We tried to ignore them, but they started following us up the hill, which has about 1250 steps to the top. They kept following us and pushing us along. My dad said he probably wouldn’t have kept going up if it weren’t for the ladies telling him to because he was tired. The ladies told us that at the top they could sell us cold water and when we were sweaty they started fanning us off. While walking up we also noticed that everyone climbing the hill had a Chinese lady following them too. I started talking to them in Chinese and found out that one of them was 47 and the other was SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS OLD! After hearing that we knew we had to finish. We reached the rock formation that looks like the moon, but the ladies told us to go up on top of it while they waited back there. The top of the hill really did have a good view. After coming back down they sold us ridiculously expensive water at 20 RMB per bottle, but it was worth it. When we got back down to our bikes, the ladies went turned into every other vendor in China and tried to sell us postcards and little trinkets. After riding back to town we ate dinner and spent the rest of the night walking around buying stuff.






Tuesday morning we had to take a taxi back to Guilin because we were going on a tour. We had another crazy taxi ride, but it was different than the rest I’ve had because this one wasn’t in traffic. From Yangshuo to Guilin there is a two-lane road that every tour bus and transport truck uses, so they get in the way of the cars. Our taxi driver spent almost as much time in the wrong lane as he did in the correct one because he passed so often. He once even passed on the shoulder because another car was also passing in the left lane at the same time. The worst part was that he was playing crappy Mando-pop (Mandarin Chinese pop music) the whole time and the speakers were right behind our heads. Anyway, he got us to Guilin on time.

After getting to our hotel we met our tour guide and driver, so we planned out the day. The first place we went was Yao Mountain, which is the tallest point in Guilin. Unfortunately it was pretty hazy out and we couldn’t see too far in the distance. We walked around there for a little while and then took the chairlift back down.

Next place we went was the tea research center where we got to wear funny hats, learn about tea, drink tea, and buy tea. I never like the tea we get at restaurants, but I really like some of the ones we tried and I burnt my tongue on one of them. After that, we went to the Peaceful Solitary Beauty Peak (or something), which is where the prince would come and meditate. China really likes things that go up, so there were more stairs and more views to take pictures of.

We didn’t do too much the rest of the night, so we made sure we were ready to head to Shanghai the next day.

Addendum: I forgot to tell a funny story about our cab ride from our hotel in Guilin to the airport on Wednesday morning. We went out of the hotel and there was a cab waiting in the parking lot already. When he saw our bags he said, “Airport – 100!” This seemed pretty steep because usually they just use the meter instead of a flat rate and we knew it wasn’t extremely far to the airport. Anyway, he opened the trunk and the first thing he did was pull out a LIVING CHICKEN and hand it to his buddy, so there would be room for our luggage. We didn’t even know what to say and it didn’t help matters when we saw all the chicken crap. He got all embarrassed and laid a bunch of newspaper over it. At this point my dad said he wanted to go ask inside how much this should cost. He went in and found out that it should cost 100 kuai and for some reason he decided to tell them there was a chicken in the trunk. When he said chicken, the lady said, “You want to… check-in?” This cracked my dad up, so he tried to explain it better and this time he started doing a chicken strut and flapping his wings. I’m glad us Americans can leave good impressions on these people.