Guilin – Yangshuo
Our big plan today is to spend the day in Yangshuo, a smaller town (we have come to realize that "small town" in China means something different than it does in a country with only a fraction of the population) about an hour from Guilin. That of course means a trip to the local bus station, where, to no real surprise, nobody speaks any English and signs are only in Chinese. The only word we know that will help at all is "Yangshuo", so after saying this repeatedly, we are pointed to the proper ticket window and then off to the line for the bus.
Like Guilin, Yangshuo is right in the middle or hundreds of limestone karst formations, and in recent years has actually become more popular as a travel destination than Guilin, particularly for backpackers and rock climbers. Arriving there, we soon realize the attraction, as (for me anyways) it is easily the best city we have been to so far. Because it is smaller than Guilin, it is fairly easy to walk around and there are many streets lined with shops and restaurants that are closed to traffic, so very easy to just wander down in search of a good lunch or some interesting souvenirs.
It what may be one of our best finds here, we stumble across a place called Lou’s Bakery, which makes some of the best buns I may have ever had. Not being much of a bread eater, I soon find myself coming up with reasons to walk back past this bakery to buy one or two more (at 1.5 yuan each they make for a pretty cheap meal).
For tourists, there are a lot of choices in this area so we head off to one of the travel agencies to ask about a few things. Highly recommended in our book are the cruise from Guilin to Langshuo on the Li River and a hot air balloon ride over the countryside, so we reserve the former for the following morning and the latter for later in the afternoon. We were also told about a live show they do on the river at night, so we book tickets for that the following night as well.
With a few hours to kill before the balloon ride, we use the time just hanging out in Langshuo. If it weren’t for the smog (yes, even here) I could live here, it is that mellow. Sitting on the sidewalk surrounded by limestone cliffs, enjoying some cheap food and the local beer (Li Quan, which is excellent, and they serve it very cold), it’s impossible not to slip into a state of relaxation.
When the time finally arrived for our balloon trip, we hopped in a minivan for a short drive into the countryside and our first real exposure to life outside the city. As waqs to be expected, life moves at a much slower pace here. There are very few cars (and even if there were the roads are so bad they couldn’t go more than a few miles per hour), farmers herd animals down the street, and there are small rice paddies and vegetable farms everywhere. What was a bit surprising is that even in the absence of any real traffic, there are still little stands every so often on the road selling water and snacks, we’re just not sure to who.
At the balloon site, we had about a half hour wait while the wind died down and the balloons were unpacked and inflated. Right next to us there was a group of farmers planting rice, so we watched them for a while and took a few pictures. They offered to let us try, and the next thing I knew, I was calf deep in a rice paddy with a half dozen locals. I was so good at it that in the pictures it might be hard to tell who is who, so for those who have trouble, I am the tall one.
The balloon ride itself was amazing. As spectacular as the scenery is from the ground here, it doesn’t compare to how it looks from a thousand feet up. Being the first balloon experience for both of us, we weren’t entirely sure what to expect, but hands down it was the highlight of this part of our trip. There was so much to see that we were constantly snapping pictures with two cameras even though we knew that they wouldn’t come close to matching being there. At our highest, we were about 3,000 feet high and could see for miles in every direction (if there ever are any now, on a day without smog the view would be absolutely fantastic). At our lowest, the pilot skimmed the surface of the river with the bottom of the basket. It was very, very cool and something we would highly recommend.
Back in Langshuo, we found a nice place for dinner and then headed back to the bus station for the return trip to Guilin. One tiny problem was that the travel person told us the express buses ran until 11pm (it was 9:30 at this point). In fact, they only run until 8:30, leaving the only option privately-run buses a.k.a. the chicken bus. On no set schedule, these buses simply run whenever they manage to cram them full of people, include at least a half dozen sitting on upside-down pails in the aisle. They are also not express, so they stop frequently to either cram more people on, or to let people off who are invariably right at the back so have to jostle past all the people on pails to get to the door. That said, after an hour and forty minutes, we were thrilled to be back at the hotel an in comfortable bed (particularly since tomorrow will be an early day to make the river cruise).