The final stop after Yunnan and Sichuan was Guangxi. We came for three full days to explore the countryside, the famous Karst mountains and the rice terraces north of Guilin.
In Yangshuo we stayed at the Giggling Tree hostel, which I highly recommend. Dutch owners and a bunch of local employees make the place a home away from home with great food, amazing rooms and the best quality bikes I’ve ever rented in China.
For day one we rented some bikes and set off to explore the country side. We cycled, rafted, climbed and mud bathed. It was quite the day. In the evening we even managed to catch another musical and cultural highlight – the Yangshuo Li River Show. It is a pompous outside event on the river, that is being orchestrated by the same guy who came up with the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony and builds on the same success factors: opulence and sheer mass of people. Over 600 actors make this quite the spectacular event. Unfortunately the story isn’t so easy to grasp, so if you want more than just a visual experience, I’d recommend to read up on it beforehand. We didn’t and found more joy in our Popcorn and Tsing Taos than the actual story-line.
I love that every Chinese bike clearly indicates your riding direction – you wouldn’t want to get confused!
Yangshuo is not only the landmark that graces the 20 RMB note, but also covers some cigarette packaging.
The rivers in the area have lots of fish and back in the day Comoran fishing used to be it. We went to see how it’s done and to be honest I’m quite glad food is easier to come by these days. I’d have a lot of hungry days otherwise.
Yangshuo itself is a cute little town. I’d say 2 to 3 days lets you easily cover it all.