Guilin and Yangshuo

Back in Hong Kong I talked to a Dutch guy at a restaurant who lived in Hong Kong and had traveled a fair bit in China and he recommended Guilin, in Guangxi province, to me. It wasn't on my agenda, but after checking it out in my guidebook it looked pretty nice. The scenery was supposed to be spectacular. After finding there were direct flights available from Macau, I decided to make it my port of entry into China.

Guilin itself was a bit of a disappointment. While the surrounding scenery looked great, the city wasn't really in the midst of the best looking stuff. There also didn't really seem to be a backpacker presence there. In fact, there wasn't much of a white tourist presence, period, or at least they were diluted out by the droves of Chinese tourists. In the only full day I spent there, I walked around the city for several hours, including to the major sights, and I saw only two other white people, while there were busloads of Chinese tour groups.

Anyway, after consulting my guidebook some more, I learnt that there were no backpackers in Guilin because they were all in a town called Yangshuo, located inamongst all the mountains, an hour's bus ride from Guilin. It's a backpacker enclave in the same style as Interlaken, Switzerland or Queenstown, New Zealand. There are daytrips down the river you can do from Guilin and I heard good reports from people who had done that. I decided my best option was to head straight out of Guilin and up to Yangshuo for a few days.

The few days turned into 6 days and I'm likely to head back there later in the trip. It's easily the best place I've been so far this trip. I travel to meet people, to do outdoor stuff, and (if in a city) for nightlife. The cultural experience is just icing for me, whereas it's the whole point for some people. Yangshuo ticks all my boxes, so while some might find the Westernised feel of the town a bit disappointing, I like it. And if you want real China, you only have to grab a bike and ride for 15 minutes out of town before it turns into rice paddies and farmers tending to their water buffalo. There are towns like Xingping nearby where you can stay if you want something a bit more isolated; no doubt that will be the next place to become the backpacker haven after Yangshuo gets too commercial for us.

So, the good scenery. It consists of what are called karsts, these limestone mountains thrust up into weird shapes by geological forces. There's a quote from Kissinger to the effect that he always thought the paintings of the Guilin hills were exaggeration and surrealism, until he visited and found that they were realism. There's a good photo of Yangshuo here; mine didn't come out so well. The problem is that a lot of the time the air is quite misty and hazy, which plays havoc with cameras. I'll post a few shots though - just bear in mind that in real life you can see it all a lot more clearly. Here's a panorama from the roof of the first hostel I stayed at:



One day I rode out to nearby Moon Hill and climbed it. Here's a shot I took on the way:



And a couple from the top of the hill:




And a couple shots from Yangshuo town. West Street (Xi Jie in Chinese) also nicknamed Foreigner Street is the main tourism street in town, containing a lot of the restaurants, bars, tourist shops selling crap, etc:




As I mentioned, I rode a bike out to Moon Hill one day and another day I went rock climbing nearby, which was great. A few days were wasted though - one because of the weather and a couple with hassles with hostels and flights that I won't get into. So I still have a lot of stuff to do if I head back there.

The nightlife is all backpacker-oriented, but since there are quite a few expats living there for extended periods, the good thing is there are organised social events as well - for instance, there were at least two weekly pub quizzes, one of which I attended and was a lot of fun. Two bars in particular were good - Monkey Jane's, a hostel which has a rooftop bar which is just-passing-through backpacker HQ. My last night in Yangshuo was their fourth birthday party and was so rowdy an affair (beer pong challenge table, anyone?) that it was eventually shut down by the cops. Also Loove Bar, a little place set back away from the main tourist area, featuring 750ml Tsingtao beer for 8 yuan (A$1.60) - half the price of most bars in town - and run by a really friendly, likeable Chinese girl who spoke maybe the best English I heard in town. That place was HQ for all the people in town volunteering to teach English, which brings me to that - it's a big thing in Yangshuo.

You can just show up in town and teach for as short or long a time as you like. The teaching involves 2 hours per evening of chatting to a group of Chinese who are already reasonable at English but want to attain fluency. During lesson time you get free beer, and for the rest of the time you're put up at the school for free and get two meals a day. It's a good deal, since chatting to English-speaking Chinese and drinking beer sounds good to most backpackers anyway. From what I understand people come to the school from as far afield as Beijing, as a sort of combination holiday-learning thing where they see the sights of Yangshuo during the day and improve their English in the evening. For people that want a more full on English experience, there are 24-hour "no Mandarin allowed" immersion schools as well, where native speakers can stay free and come and go as they please, speaking English to the students while at the school. But the two hours a day thing sounds better to me.

I'm keen to do some of that teaching, as well as just hang out in Yangshuo a bit longer, so I'm pretty sure I'll head back there towards the end of my trip. For the moment though I at least had to go and see Shanghai and Beijing. May Day Holiday - a national one-week public holiday beginning May 1 - was approaching, and I was advised not to go to any popular tourist spots during that time. I figured Shanghai would be a good idea since the nightlife would be buzzing and that was really my only reason - other than sheer curiosity - for going to Shanghai. So on April 30 I caught - actually, almost missed - a flight to Shanghai, where I am currently sitting in a rooftop bar a lot less cool than Monkey Jane, finishing up this post.

PS: I just realised it would be remiss of me not to mention that despite all my comments about "Foreigner Street", Westernisation, etc, Chinese tourists in Yangshuo still vastly outnumber Western tourists. There are just too many people in this country for it to be any other way.