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| Guilin & Yangshou |
You know you are in China when…you are still in the bathroom and the airplane starts taxiing and as you are getting closer to runway a guy just stands up and goes to the bathroom. Also, when you have blaring advertisements on plane.
Got to Guilin – The smoke and dirtiness of this relatively un-industrial city still hits you as you exit the terminal. Our initial hotel rooms were taken by the government for some convention, so we were moved to new hotel – 5 stars. Went to eat – not many (any?) Caucasian tourists. Took 10 seconds leaving hotel to be asked if we want “woman”. Beautiful pogoda’s of sun+moon = bright future for Guilin. Dinner was nothing special and it was difficult to order.
Very tired. All the traveling is finally taking its toll. We got little sleep the first night in Guilin, and had to be up early the next day for the boat ride down the river. Chris, our awesome tour guide, showed up and we were off. Unlike other tours, we were on a boat with many other people, including a group of high schoolers from Piedmont, California. Among other entertaining things they were doing, they had caught the Rubik’s cube craze full on. When I was in 6th grade, I could do the cube in about a minute and would charge $1 to people for me to do their cube. Always the entrepreneur. However, I have since forgotten almost everything about doing them. It’s not like riding a bike. So, I borrowed one of their cubes and did one side, and figured out the basic movements of the pieces. They offered to help, but I wanted to figure it out from first principals. I was mid way through the sides when we docked. I will continue in the pleasant comforts of South Beach.
Guilin has amazing views of Karsks, but they were somewhat wasted on me during the trip. These were fairly similar to those we saw 5 days before in Houlong Bay, outside of Hanoi, and my fatigue was making it difficult to appreciate the beauty. As the long line of tour boats snakes through the Li River, we heard tour guides point out the nine horses, the beautiful girl – all questionable objects in the rocks. Overall, the tour was amazing, just it would have been better had we not seen the same thing a week before and had more sleep.
On the boat, I met Stanley, who was traveling with his wife. They were from California as well. At 55, he thought he would work for the company he was at “until I didn’t want to come in anymore”. At 57, he was called in to the boss’s office and laid off. He initially thought that day was one of the worst of his life. But, since then, he has come to see that it’s the best thing that ever happened to him. He wakes up happy every day glad to be alive. He travels and is seeing everything he never saw before. He was reborn.
Yangshou – Day 1
Yangshou is an amazing city. Unlike the more industrial city of Guilin, this smaller city 65 km away is pure tourism. Surroundedby amazing rock formations, it’s literally set in the middle of beauty. Lonely planet points out its a tourist haven …but almost all of the tourists are Chinese.
When you get off the boat, you enter into West (Xi Jie) Street, a very long street filled with vendors, restaurants, bars. It’s very touristy, but done in very attractive, authentic Chinese style. This is not the schlocky vendors of yesteryear. The newest bars targeting Asian tourists are complete with stocked alcohol walls, thumping sound systems and light systems that are like mini-SoBe. The vendors range from totally schlocky to foot stores that could have signs above them reading Foot Locker. The products are pretty consistent throughout and, in general, good quality. Its rainy season but still the main tourist season for Yangshou, so West street is crowded from morning until midnight, when it starts to empty out. The sounds of bargaining – “OK…..$150, come back! I give you!”, the punching of prices up on calculators to break the language barriers – the hawking “sir, good price for you”, it’s all here, pulsating, beautiful. Capitalism alive and well in red China.
When we got there, Chris took us to our hotel…..5 km away from West street and the center of town. We got there and said “No”. He got on the phone, and like he did a few times, got things done and got us switched to a the Magnolia hotel right in the middle of town – noisier during the day, but a small price to pay to be near the heart of this funky place.
The first thing I did was sleep for 4 hours. I was exhausted. Then, got up and walked the streets of Yangshou. Once you got off the main drags, it was completely Asian tourists, but on the main streets, 5-10% was Western visitors. Glenn and I went to dinner at a fantastic vegetarian restaurant attached our hotel. Throughout the trip, finding stuff that is appetizing, filling and that is vege for Glenn is always a challenge and time-consuming. This was the easy and delicious choice. Dining, we met Alexi, a student from Univerisity of Virginia who was studying in Shanghai and down in Guilin traveling of the weekend.
After dinner, we hit the town. We started at MC Blues Bar, owned by an Aussi, and right off the bat, met 2 of the 5-10 Caucasian woman – Abigail and Kristie. Abigail had just returned from 4 weeks in England, where she was from. They had both been in Yangshou for about 2 years and worked for China Climb, a climbing guide company across the street. Kristie was set to leave for 6 weeks in Vancouver in a few days. They were good friends sharing a drink. Oh, but things were not that simple. Abi had broken up with her boyfriend Corgan, who she had dated from 18 months, and Kristie had dated before him for a few months before that. While Abi had been away, Kristie had fooled around with Corgan again. Abi was ok with that, but after being dumped by Corgan, was love sick and wanted him back. Oh, the drama….
Anyhoo, Kristie was a very interesting person. She was heavily in yoga, meditation, tantric energies and had done a number of retreats. Her tattoos coordinated with her beliefs and she showed us (almost) all of them.
When we left MC Blues a few hours later, much of the streets had emptied and we realized that Yangshou did not have much to offer in terms of Caucasian woman. We went to another bar where I met, Chelsea from Melbourne. She was waiting on her long lost love who would be back in a 4 weeks. We danced, but no luck for the bald guy.
Day 2 – The Bike Ride and Water Performance
The next day we slept late, had a leisurely lunch and then went on a fantastic bike ride out to the countryside. It was pouring rain for the first part of the trip and as we passed locals, they would yell and wave and cheer us on (or wonder what the heck crazy westerners were doing), but it was definitely an experience. The view leaving the city, surrounded by amazing, almost other-worldly rock formations, through the rain, with the saturated green rice fields and and hillsides, was something to always remember. After riding for a while, we stopped on a dirt path in the middle of rice fields, surrounded by dozens of Karsks and just stood there, admiring the beauty and uniqueness of the experience.
On our way back, we saw a water buffalo and took a picture of it, only to be harassed by an old lady that taking that picture would cost us 3 yuen. I told her I would give her 1 yuen. She wouldn’t take it. So I started to walk away. Then she took it.
Chris got us tickets at the last minute to a water show produced and directed by the most popular movie director in China. It is the most successful show in China. It was like “O” out in Vegas except not so much acrobatics and 50 times as many performers. The scale of this thing was immense, probably having up to 300 people on the big pond stage at one time. The story was of a fisherman falling in love with a popular singer/tea girl. It was easily understandable in any language. The choreography with colorful props made this almost bigger than life. And, set in the backdrop of the beautiful Karsks made it all the more incredible.
We came back to another night out in Yangshou. This time, we went to some all Asian bars, where we were the big hits on the dance floor. Where ever we went, people swarmed to us, the girls pushed one another into us and we were the kings of the cabana. However, the novelty wore off after 10-15 minutes and we would head to the next bar. In all of them, we couldn’t find woman that we actually wanted to “get to know”. The Chinese here are not exactly attractive.
Rock Climbing
The next day was the most exciting. My conversations with Kristie and Abigail convinced me that I should try rock climbing. We went out to Wine Flask ridge, a vertical climb on the side of a Karsk 15 minutes outside of town. It was me and two Brits (Simon “Xiao Si” and Abigail). This was Abi’s first time climbing since she got back. When I first saw the cliff face I was like “No fucking way!”. It was seriously high and seriously vertical stretching 5-7 stories up. I saw some people up near the top and climbing no longer seemed like a great idea. But luckily, you start at the bottom. I strapped in Simon belayed me. The first climb was rated a 5.7, and it was scary at first, but by the time I did it a second time, I could utilize all four appendages well enough to get up without too much trouble or falling. The second climb was a 5.8…..a lot harder. This one was Simon’s favorite climb of this hill face. Just watching him go up was a bit scary.
Now, when you are climbing, you are attached to a rope, with a “Belayer” being the counterweight below, so you are not going to fall. But that provides little solace when you are up there. On the second climb, there were literally 5 times when I thought “I have no idea how to get to the next step – what do I hold onto”. The face seemed shear at times and I had to look really closely to find the crag to grab or move my feet to. Two thirds of the way up, with the sun beating down on me, I thought “I’m going back. This is ridiculous.” But I pushed on. My arms began to hurt half way up and by three quarters of the way, I was resting two after every two or three movements. It was exhausting. However, fatigued and weary, I reached the top. I consider it one of the best accomplishments of the trip.
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