Steve's Day 6 - Yangshuo Weather Turns Amazing!

(Steve)

The weather in Yangshuo was AMAZING. I wore shorts and a t-shirt for the first time in months and I wasn't even chilly. We had a free day there and I'd originally planned to go climbing (it's supposed to be some of the best climbing in China) but the scenery around the town was just so beautiful that I decided I'd rather go with the rest of the group for a bike ride. Jill and I walked down the road to find a guide; the first one we ran into did a tour that included a bike ride, a trip on bamboo rafts, and a visit to the Buddha Water Cave. Sounded good to us. We went back to the hotel and got Molly (Candice didn't want to come) and got ready to head out. After a little bit of haggling - the guide hadn't told us that the water cave visit cost money, so we ended up dropping it - we went across the street to rent a bicycle. Jill wasn't too keen on riding, so the guide offered to carry her on the back of his electric scooter (they've got a lot of those here). Then we saw the two-person bicycles. My grandmother has one, and I've got some great memories of riding aroudn on it with Alex as a kid. I only recently tried steering it myself though, with Mark on the back, and the results were disastrous. So, of course, I convinced Molly that it would be a whole lot of fun.

I quickly discovered that this bicycle was much, MUCH easier to steer than my grandmother's. Which is good, because I hadn't realized that we'd be experiencing Chinese traffic up-close. I was a bit scared when the guide turned onto Yangshuo's main road (okay, I was terrified) but everything went alright. Somehow, even with all the honking and people and bikes and cars weaving all over the place, I still never felt like I had any really close calls. In fact, the only time Molly and I even came close to crashing was after we'd left the main road far behind; we ended up on a couple of muddy, windy, pothole-filled side roads that weren't too easy to maneuver. Apart from that, the bike ride was a lot of fun. Like I said, the scenery was beyond beautiful.

The bamboo rafts were a whole lot of fun. Each one only fit two passengers, so Molly and I took one while Jill took another. We set off, and got wet almost immediately. The river was divided by lots of little dikes, and the only way to get by them with the bamboo rafts was to drop off. Fortunately they warned us ahead of time to raise our legs, but on the first drop the water came up enough that our pants got soaked. We got over that pretty quickly though, and the rest of the trip was relaxing. Even the salespeople floating by on their own rafts couldn't faze us. Some Chinese tourists who were also taking a raft trip decided to try out their English, but they were too shy to speak directly to us; instead, they spoke to each other and laughed whenever we responded. Then their raft fell behind and we went back to admiring the river, the occasional family motorcycling across it, and the incredible mountains.

When the rafts docked, we hopped back on our tandem bicycle (which had been stored on Jill's raft) and rode to a nearby village for lunch. Our restaurant had a great view of Moon Hill, so named because of the hole through it that looks like... the moon. Our guide telling us that the wait for the food would be very long, and wouldn't we rather go somewhere else? Jill figured that he wasn't getting a cut from the restaurant owners and he wanted to take us somewhere where he would. We were willing to wait for food though, and the restaurant smelled good enough and had a good enough view that we turned him down. Our food came in less than half the time he'd predicted. They'd forgotten one of the dishes we'd ordered, but by the time we realized that we were all full enough that we didn't want it, so everything worked out okay. Done with lunch, we started on the forty-five minute bike ride back to Yangshuo. It was uneventful, though just as beautiful as the rest of the day, except for one time in Yangshuo city proper when the guide got a bit too far ahead and Molly and I had to navigate a busy traffic circle while searching for him and Jill. We made it back in one piece though, so we can't complain. Molly and I decided it was about time we had some ice cream ("binggilin" is probably the Chinese phrase I'm most glad I know) and took a walk through town to get that. Later on, we went to the Hard Seat Cafe (modelled after the Hard Rock Cafe) for dinner. Altogether, a pretty good day. *End Day 6*