Yangshuo and around

Well, after long weeks in civilized world I finally managed to escape and went to neighboring province Guangxi to see the place called Yangshuo. I have to admit that even though I had been looking forward to that, right before I left I felt a bit lazy and definitely not in the right travel mood. However, I left and I even caught the bus, what is particularly very good start of every travel.

Travelling in buses in China seems much more comfortable than in India. I got a bed (somewhat shorter than my body, but whatever) and even a blanket! I think all the people who were warning me about how uncomfortable Chinese buses are should go visit India and then feel very sorry about what they said. Indeed, no problem at all and when I arrived to the place at 3.30 I was upset it was over and I had to go out to the rainy night and found the accommodation. Fortunately, it wasn’t big problem, as there was a weird guy waiting for the tourists and he offered a hostel. I beat the price almost to the half and took it (Chinese are not that good in bargaining (-: ).

Next day I woke up to another rainy day. But the scenery around was amazing and I found immediately my travelling spirit. I walked into the first shop, bought a raincoat, then got a bike and set off for an exploring trip. Ok, in between I also changed the accommodation for the cheapest and coolest in town (-:

So few words about the place. Yangshuo should be a city of some 300.000 people and is surrounded by probably thousands of rocky (karst) hills growing from the perfectly flat ground. I don’t exaggerate, I counted it myself how many I could see from a random spot in the town and I counted about 70. And during next days I was moving for quite some distances to various directions and it was all the same – these amazing rock hills everywhere. It felt really like in a fairy tale, with the rainy weather even more.

I spent the first day on the bike and as my ass could feel it I decided to walk the second day. These two days gave me first insights into Chinese village life. I saw some real people living in villages, though foreigners were also sometimes present as Yangshuo nearby is one of the most touristic places in China. But it was very nice and I will definitely go for more village-exploring in coming weeks.

On the third day I took the course of Chinese cooking. Yes, that’s right. When I am back I will be (hopefully) able to cook something very cool.

So that’s for today. It was a great trip indeed and maybe it doesn’t look so but many small stories happened as well. I talked to local people (yes, in Chinese, or maybe we can call it "broken Chinese"), I met some very nice travelers, I saw (for me) too many western tourists, bought two stylish Chinese musical instruments, made a street artist painted my Chinese name and many more. I liked it a lot there and I am looking forward now to another trip. Until then, my life will be the one of an ordinary “Guangzhou ren”. Bai baaai!