On Easter weekend, I was blessed with the opportunity to see some of the most beautiful mountains in the world. They were unlike anything that I've ever seen. Even in movies. If I come to China again, I will absolutely revisit Yangshuo. Although, I'd skip the sleeper-bus part. On Friday night we boarded a damp, smelly, crowded bus of FUN! Not really. It was almost comparable to the grossness that we experienced on our way home from Xi'an over the new year. But at least we didn't have to listen to a blaring Chinese opera when we were in Xi'an. It was ridiculous. We arrived to Yangshuo at approximately 5:30am. We basically got kicked off the bus, out onto the street where we were promptly greeted with rain and a man who gladly ripped us off to get a bike taxi for us. We got to our hostel and they tried to put us in one of the nicer rooms until we could check in at 8am. We didn't want to pay for the extra "night" so we just went to our "safe haven" for about two hours. Safe haven = McDonald's. While there, we enjoyed PANCAKES for the first time upon arrival in China. They were quite delicious. When we went back to our hostel, we wasted no time in arranging our tour to the Water Caves. The bus/van ride out was pretty... interesting. The "mud" portion of the cave was more like a dirty water puddle. But, it was still fun to splash around in the "mud" and even go down the mud slide. Afterwards we went to a different part of the cave where there were hot springs. While sitting there I had the realization that "hey.. I'm sitting in a hot puddle.. in a cave.. in China." Maybe no one else finds that funny, but I thought it was pretty humorous. The ride back into town was probably one of the most dangerous and definitely the most funny experience I've ever had in a van. It was so bouncy! And I mean EXTREMELY bouncy. I'm pretty sure that my head hit the ceiling. And, I even cut my hand on the window. Abby also cut her leg on the broken seat in front of her. Maybe I'll get the video posted at some point. Probably not til I'm home. But, someday. Anyway, when we got back to town we just did a little shopping and discovered all of the delicacies that were available to us. Snake, dog, octopus, eel, horse, snails. You know, just the basics. We spent the Sabbath on a 3 hour tour of the Li River on a bamboo raft. Again, the scenery in Yangshuo was unbelievable. My pictures (or writing, for that matter) will not do the experience justice. Check out Sarah's blog for better pictures. (www.sarahkwestover.blogspot.com) Later that night we went out on a Cormorant Fishing show. We were in a small boat, following alongside a raft with an old man and several birds aboard. The birds were trained to catch the fish. I thought that this meant that the birds would catch the fish in their mouths and bring them back up to the man to put them in a basket. Not the case. After about fifteen minutes of watching the birds doing what I thought was only swimming to the bottom of the river without any luck, we pulled up to the shore. At that point, we watched the man grab each bird by the neck and force them to regurgitate the fish that they had, indeed, caught. After that lovely display of entertainment, we met up with another ILP group for dessert. We were hoping to go to Chez Kelly, a place where we found delicious Oreo and Snicker's milkshakes, BUT they were for some sad reason closed. So, we went to McDonald's instead. And, WOW. American desserts are going to be so sweet when I get home. That strawberry milkshake tasted like straight sugar. Although... I don't think it will take me too long to get used to again. But, maybe it will be a good thing if I don't? We spent the rest of the night becoming best friends with the receptionist at the hostel. Peter. The girls tried to get him to find horses for us to ride. No luck. But, he did find some water buffalo that they could ride. Why they wanted to ride a water buffalo is beyond me. But, to each his/her own. So, Peter was playing some game online that resembled Farmville from Facebook and we asked him if he had a real garden. Of course, he did. One thing led to another, and the next thing I knew we were planning on biking out to Peter's house the next day to see his garden. Monday was an exciting, beautiful, confusing, and frustrating adventure. Abby and I split a scooter. That was the exciting part, because I drove. The scenery was of course the beautiful part. The confusing part was that Abby, Lina(other ILP group), and I got lost.. twice. And the frustrating part was that I still had to push the scooter for about a mile and a half after I wrecked it in a mud hole. Do you know how hard it is to drive a scooter in mud?! Extremely. Just in case you were wondering. When we returned the bikes and scooters, the ladies who owned the rental stand were horrified at how muddy everything was. A few of us got our shoes cleaned. The lady must've liked the first group better because when my group went, she brought our shoes back only slightly cleaner and completely soaked. I had to use the hair dryer at the hostel to dry them. We visited our favorite crepe stand one last time and also enjoyed fried bananas. A couple of us grabbed small bags of kumquats and then headed back to the hostel to wait until it was time to board the next wonderful sleeper bus. Thankfully, it was not as wet, loud, or crowded as the first bus. We made it back to the Zhongshan bus station at 6:30am, caught the Kaiyin bus, and made it back to our complex just in time to catch breakfast at the Kaiyin school. Fabulous.
Again, I'm sorry for the vague details. But, the trip was definitely worth it. When in China, visit Yangshuo.
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