Stop #17 Yangshou

From Lijiang we flew to Guilin, and then took a bus one hour south to Yangshou. The bus ride was made mildly more or less tolerable (depending on our tastes) by the video that was playing. From what we gathered, it was a Chinese version of Police Academy. It was soooo baaaad! The portrayal of women in the movie was horrific. Anyway, enough of that. We arrived in Yangshou at night so with the help of some Aussies, we found the main hotel drag and picked a nice hotel. At first I was not convinced that we should pay double to get a western toilet and was tempted to pay for our first squatter... but oh, if I were in a movie, the director would have paused for some foreshadowing... Our first night in Yangshou I got TERRIBLY ill and didn't leave the hotel room the following day. (Thank god for the western style toilet! ;)) Poor billy had to shuttle up and down the 4 flights of stairs constantly to get water, replace the DVDs, get himself food, get me some food (eventually)... he was a very good nurse!

During one of his excursions (for dinner I think), he was approached by a group of girls who asked him if we would accompany them on a bamboo boat tour down the Li River the following day, in exchange for some English practice. Billy left it up in the air with them (as my health was uncertain), but when they called the following morning just as they said they would, we decided to join them. (Note - billy thought they were 13-14 years old. But, as it happened, they were all 19+ and in university.)

The next day turned out to be a ton of fun, as Kersti was feeling good enough to join the students on the cruise down the river on the bamboo rafts. The rafts were powered by what looked like a lawn mower engine with a spinning blade out back, and zoomed over some very shallow water. The scenery was truly spectacular, with limestone karsts lining the banks. The students were really fun, they spoke limited english but were keen to try. Afterwards, they bought us a nice lunch (we ended up chipping in) at a Chinese restaurant. So Kersti's first meal back after being sick happened to be a huge Chinese banquet, but the food was all really good (not too surprising seeing how we had Chinese students to order for us).

The stunning limestone karsts surrounding Yangshuo, the whole area is all like this!

Two of our student friends with who we went on the bamboo rafts.

Our delicious chinese lunch after the rafting trip, including rice cooked in pumpkins!

Hiking amongst the karsts.

At a tourist site, we dressed up as Chinese royalty in costumes they would rent, it was hilarious. Tons of Chinese tourists got a total kick out of seeing us dressed up as well, and they even wanted to take pictures with us! It was totally corny, and totally worth doing!