Yangshuo
Because Guilin was so disappointing, we left after one day and went to Yangshuo, a nearby town. Yangshuo is supposed to be a backpackers' paradise and I can see why. It's basically this small town surrounded by mountains, the way Guilin should be. There is one main street with all the shops, restaurants, and bars. The town is also more western than Beijing. There are a lot of westerners there too, particularly Austrailians.
The first day we rode bikes out of town towards Moon Hill and the water caves, but we never made it because we rode into this small village and wandered around there instead.
The second day we went on a cruise down the Li Jiang (a river) to see the mountains. We asked the boat driver to describe the mountains, but he only spoke Chinese, so there was definitely some things lost in translation. Besides, even if you understand the mountain is supposed to look like an old man holding an apple, you can't always see it. When you do see it though, it's pretty exciting. After we got off the boat we climbed up one of the mountains. Apparently a Japanese man decided he wanted to build a staircase up one of the mountains and so he did and he made it free!
The third day we went to Longsheng, a place where a Chinese minority lives and grows crops on these terraced rice paddies. The scenery there is incredible. The only bad point is that you have these women following you around the whole time pushing you along and trying to sell you things.
In Yangshuo we met an Austrailian backpacker named Lonnie. Lonnie wanted to eat banana pancakes because he heard they were good here. The first cafe we tried didn't offer it so we went across the street. In there a Chinese man started talking with us because he could tell we were native English speakers. When he heard that three of us were from Austrailia he told us the owner was also from Austrailia and went to get him. It turns out the owner is the brother of a friend of Tina's sister from Darwin, Austrailia. He then chewed us out for ordering banana pancakes. He says all the people who read the Lonely Planet guides want to order them so now he has to offer them. He also says Lonely Planet tells you to get banana pancakes no matter where you are, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, etc... We all had Lonely Planet guides and I even used one in Thailand where I also ate banana pancakes. But if it weren't for the banana pancakes, we wouldn't have gone into his cafe.
The first day we rode bikes out of town towards Moon Hill and the water caves, but we never made it because we rode into this small village and wandered around there instead.
The second day we went on a cruise down the Li Jiang (a river) to see the mountains. We asked the boat driver to describe the mountains, but he only spoke Chinese, so there was definitely some things lost in translation. Besides, even if you understand the mountain is supposed to look like an old man holding an apple, you can't always see it. When you do see it though, it's pretty exciting. After we got off the boat we climbed up one of the mountains. Apparently a Japanese man decided he wanted to build a staircase up one of the mountains and so he did and he made it free!
The third day we went to Longsheng, a place where a Chinese minority lives and grows crops on these terraced rice paddies. The scenery there is incredible. The only bad point is that you have these women following you around the whole time pushing you along and trying to sell you things.
In Yangshuo we met an Austrailian backpacker named Lonnie. Lonnie wanted to eat banana pancakes because he heard they were good here. The first cafe we tried didn't offer it so we went across the street. In there a Chinese man started talking with us because he could tell we were native English speakers. When he heard that three of us were from Austrailia he told us the owner was also from Austrailia and went to get him. It turns out the owner is the brother of a friend of Tina's sister from Darwin, Austrailia. He then chewed us out for ordering banana pancakes. He says all the people who read the Lonely Planet guides want to order them so now he has to offer them. He also says Lonely Planet tells you to get banana pancakes no matter where you are, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, etc... We all had Lonely Planet guides and I even used one in Thailand where I also ate banana pancakes. But if it weren't for the banana pancakes, we wouldn't have gone into his cafe.
posted by wchien at 10:43 PM
1 Comments:
i'm looking for the old "open marriage" village entry and run across this one. your baroque geographical orthography is painful. i'll just post this anonymously. ;o)
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