Shanghaied Bob: Guilin part 4 Yangshuo

After visiting the market in Xingping we drove further down the Li river to the town of Yangshuo. It is a very scenic small town, very popular with backpackers and tourist. The area around Yangshuo is renowned throughout China for its karst landscape. There are hundreds upon hundreds of limestone hills dotting the countryside. Many people go either cycling or on a river cruise on the Yulong River or a combination of both to check out the scenery. Our guide arranged for us to rent bikes from our hotel where we took a ride out of town along the river. We then took a leisurely bamboo raft ride (on real bamboo raft) for the next 2 hours including going over 5 little water falls along way. Upon going over the first waterfall photographers on floating docks were waiting to capture your experience/expression. The man steering our raft stopped at the floating dock, where we got out and reviewed pictures on a flat screen monitor. We picked 2 pictures and within minutes we had a 6x8 plastic coated picture. Farther down the river there were more floating docks serving grilled fish and beer. People would stop and get off the raft for lunch or a afternoon drink.

Our bikes were shuttled down to the exit point of the rafting trip and from there we cycled 20 minutes to Noon Hill another of these must see places. It is billed as a unique formation where you climb up 700 steps to a lookout point with a big hole in the hill. At the trail head we meet two ladies carrying small coolers, selling cold water and soft drinks. The path was wet and in some parts slippery because of the earlier rain storm. I am not sure why, but the two ladies walked up the hill with us. One walked with ME and the other walked with me. We said several times that it was not necessary but they insisted. Both spoke some English enough to have a basic conversation. At the top we took pictures and hung out for about 20 minutes, then started our walk down. The one women literary helped ME all the way down, in some of the more slippery sections holding her hand. Once at the bottom ME made me buy a water from each one even though I was already carrying two water bottles.

We had another 1-1/2 hour bike ride to back to the hotel. Instead of using the main road back our guide took us along some back country roads and walkways. This was probably one of the most interesting and scenic parts of the day. We got a chance to see rural China and enjoy the incredible countryside. Below are pictures of the days experiences.