It's China, but not as we know it............

Yeah, I know that it is basically Disneyland China and is overflowing with tourists to the point of madness but you can’t argue with views like this…

Yes, my fellow world citizens, welcome to Yangshuo, China.  Now we did visit Chengdu & Kunming following Lhasa and before arriving in Yangshuo but for the sake of brevity….and also as I really don’t want to relive the debilitating bout of Chinese tummy experienced by moi… I shall gloss over these and head straight to the big kahuna, Yangshuo. Alternate name, “easiest place in China to pretend that you are not in China.” Transport, food, DVDs, Books, street signs, all in English but with one extremely salient point….alll the prices were in Chinese. If you are looking for a real china experience this probably isn’t the place to go but for scenery and the ability to soothe two fevered travellers brows this is it! We spent 5 days there happily reclothing our bones in fat (how many portions of steak and chicken cordon bleu can one eat without exploding one asks?) and pretending to be world class photographers, honestly you can’t take a bad photo of that place.

Shortly after we arrived we strangely forgot the intimate agony we were in after cycling on a 45 degree incline (upwards!) for about an hour in Kunming and elected to cycle out to the 600 year old Dragon bridge, hopefully along the riverside with picturesque views of karst limestone mountains, water buffalo maybe a few scattered chickens and some such. Armed with some foodstuffs from the bakery (ask Al about the unnaturally coloured blueberry cakes and watch him salivate), mountain bikes and a deceptively simple map we were off.

We did get the desired views but also got more than our fair share of mud. Once we left the road we suddenly remembered that we were travelling through the countryside famed for its waterlogged rice paddies and that it had been raining recently. I got absolutely covered in splatters of mud from the back of my beck to my slightly aching ankles, to the point where it looked like I’d had a serious accident of the toilet nature. Master Southern, on the hand, had not a drop on him. You can imagine my extreme pleasure at this. Back to our cycling, about 5k in we realised that the map was useless and doubt started creeping in. Happily we met up with a guy from Kilburn called Andy who had attached himself to a young Chinese girl who had the foresight to hire a guide. One look at their scatter-free clothes and by golly we did the same. With a bit of slip sliding around, numbness in the bum, a minor puncture that took an old dude 30 mins to fix and pretending that the smell of country air is refreshing (water buffalo faecal matter) we made to the bridge! And what a picturesque little bridge it was.

It was at this point that ‘our’ guide decided that she had enough of these free loaders and asked us for £5 each to get us back to the town. Myself, Master Southern and Andy left in a flurry of ‘pffts, not in my lifetimes and how hard can it be’s?” and decided to make our own way home. Ohhhhh dear. I repeat, oh dear. At first all was well and conversation leaned towards what are your favourite restaurants in London and ooh that’ll make a nice photo. We even saw a sign that said Yangshuo was only 2.5k away so we carried on as a happy little team. Our first dark cloud appeared when we stopped a man and his pet buffalo for directions. His startled laugh and convoluted instructions gave us our first clue that all was not well. Things deteriorated pretty quickly after that, including our conversation which had moved on to “do you think this mud will ever come off?”, “I swear we’ve ridden past this hill before” and “do you think that a spa will massage my bum without getting the wrong idea?”. To cut a long story short we cycled through the Chinese version of Deliverance (even with the funny teeth and maniacal laugh) and got to a main road and some signs in English. One of which said Yangshuo 11km. Sigh. You’d better believe I had extra chips with my steak that night following our 50k ride (or thereabouts).

The next morning (mid-morning if I’m honest) we spurned the idea of cycling and decided that gliding along the river via diesel power was the way to go. And so it was. Southern and I hopped on a local bus quite clearly designed for local travel, I was in the back corner hanging out the window with my knees fighting for the same space as my chest and Southern didn’t even get a seat, he sat on the ledge between the driver and the door for an hour. After an uneventful hour (apart from the man chasing the hundred or so fluffy chicks that had escaped the confines of the cage on his moped and spilled across the road) we arrived at the river and hopped on a romantic bamboo raft for. Pretty stunning I’m sure you’ll agree though not so romantic as Al & I had had a minor disagreement about something or other.

I may have erroneously mentioned that there wasn’t a surplus of culture in Yangshuo. We did get a close up view of how death is treated in that part of the world. Whilst studiously eating some gastronomic wonder we noticed that that corner stall next door was being dismantled. This distracted us from eating only as it was one of the few places that Al could get his liquid crack, sorry, his ice cold Pepsi max. The lady serving us explained that a 60yr old lady had died next door that day. This all became evident as a huge carved wooden coffin arrived on a moped and trailer and 6 men struggled to place it in the now empty shop. The next day there she was in her coffin festooned with bright ribbons whilst her friends and family came to pay their respects before settling down to a good session of beer & tea drinking and cards. Not a tear in sight and lots of smiling people. Made me happy.

Another piece of ‘culture’ experienced was the light show. All a very worthy and imaginative concept. Basically it was a light show on water under the watchful gaze of the karsts. They also hired a lot of the local fishermen & kids so some may have got a warm fuzzy feeling whilst buying the tickets. Unfortunately this is yet another example that I am, according to Al anyway, dead inside. It was bright, imaginative, colourful etc. etc. but to me it felt a  bit like Sin City. Looked amazing but after 15 mins I descended into boredom. I can only apologise for my entrenched nature. Sorry.

 Do I gain some ground by saying that I thoroughly enjoyed and wasn’t remotely bored by the cormorant fishing? No? Ah well.

Sadly, the mini respite of good looking luxury in Yangshuo had to end of some point or we’d have to buy new (larger) wardrobes so we prepared to leave and make our way to that island of dissolution Hong Kong. The fact that our preparation for this trip involved a full body, 1hr long massage tells you just how low we had sunk into the pool of decadence that is Yangshuo.