Steve's Day 5 - A Cold Day in Yangshuo

(Steve)

Day 5 was the day of the Li River Cruise, from Guilin to Yangshuo, which we'd heard so many good things about. Unfortunately, it was raining. The cliffs along the river were still beautiful; with the grey sky and the mist I finally understood why Chinese ink paintings look the way they do. Still, the cold made it impossible to stay on the boat's deck for very long, so we mostly stayed inside and came out for the good stuff. One of the best sights was the "Painted Hill of Nine Horses", a cliff whose face is laced with limestone so that it looks like there are nine white horses painted on it. Of course, none of us could find more than four or five. Rico assured us that finding three was enough to make us good tourists, and pointed out the tenth "black horse". Then we had lunch. The chicken curry was delicious.

Yangshuo was bustling. It seemed very small, partly because the hills surrounded it even more than in Guilin, but it was packed with people. Specifically, people who wanted to sell us stuff. There were tons of markets along each side of the road selling everything we could possibly need, plus stuff we never would. Fortunately Rico didn't stop, or we probably would have been swallowed up by a crowd of salespeople. He got us safely to the hotel, then left. On our own in China... it felt a little eerie. Molly and I went for a walk and promptly got lost. Eventually we found our way back, only to discover that Candice and Jill had gone out and also gotten lost. When they finally returned to the hotel we were all starving, so we went out for dinner. I ordered a burger, which was a mistake.

I needed a battery charger, having discovered that the one I bought in Hong Kong didn't work, so after dinner Molly and I ventured into the marketplace. It was very intimidating; people were yelling at us from every side, telling us to buy things. It made it even worse knowing that anything we wanted to buy was deliberately overpriced, and it was up to us to bargain it down. I didn't even try; the shopowner gave me a price that was already lower than the one on the charger, and I didn't want to push my luck. Molly had fun though, especially when she bought a hat from a little old lady who couldn't speak - they negotiated by writing their prices on a pad of paper. Satisfied with our first day in Yangshuo, we went to bed. *End Day 5*