Yangshuo Trip

Bamboo rafts...in the caves...and some scenery.



The first pic is the bamboo rafts...the second is Greg on the scooter, and the next couple are just cool.



So I'm real bad at keeping up this blog thing. It takes a while to load pics...and there are so many I want to put on here. Guess I'll have to be more picky. Anyway, there are two trips I made that I haven't even started so I'll start with the one 3 weeks ago. The Chinese have a holiday that lasts 7 days...so we definitely took advantage of that. We got train tickets to Guilin and planned to go to Yangshuo from there. 16 from our study abroad group planned to go there. 6 of us split of though to make getting reservations easier. Our group consisted of Marc, Dave, Julianna, Ryan, Greg and me. Guilin is a city in south-western China and its a huge tourist place. And not just for foreigners-its beautiful. Yangshuo is a smaller city about 20-30 mins outside of Guilin and seemed to me to be even more touristy. There was so much to do. I'll start with a quick rundown.

Saturday- we finished up with class and got on the train. Our seats were what you call hard sleepers. 6 beds to each little compartment. Not super comfortable, but a lot nicer than a plane when you're traveling for that long.
Sunday- 24 hours later we arrived in Guilin and got in a little van (usually a seven seater, but we fit a total of 9 adults and a baby in there).
Monday- we rented electric scooters and followed a tour guide around to some different sites. First we went to the mud caves. You walk around, ooh and aah at the cave formations and then you jump in the mud and play. Pretty fun actually. Then we went to the bamboo rafts. It was super relaxing and couldn't have been better weather for it. The river was amazing too. The water is so much warmer than in Montana its ridiculous. After lunch we took the long way home and went through some little towns and saw the beautiful countryside. Later that night Dave, Marc, Julianna and I went to the show put on by Zhang Yimo. He's an amazing director, he uses colors and imagery like a pro...
Heres some pics from the bridge and the ride over. The little kid on the bike is a champ.
Tuesday- Marc, Dave, Julianna and I rented bikes and rode out to Yulong Bridge (遇龙桥). The ride out there was awesome. We went through a bunch of little towns or villages or whatever and were riding through the fields to get there. We followed a little chinese lady who showed us the way because she had nothing better to do. Once we got there the bridge was cool and all (it was built in the 1400s) but the coolest thing was when we started jumping off. The chinese thought we were crazy but they loved it, they flocked to it and started taking pics, applauding and egging us on. It was way fun. We think the bridge is about 30-35 ft. The chinese dude in the pic is the guy that we convinced to jump after all three of us did it. It took him like 5 mins though because he was so nervous.

Wednesday- Dave, Marc and I went rock climbing in the morning. The guys who took us were way chill and about our age. It was way fun and by the end of it we were all dead tired. So we went back to the hostel and took a nap. Later that night we met up with everyone else (all 13 of em) and had a birthday dinner for Ben-the British dude in the group.
Thursday- we rented motorcycles and went riding. We rode back out to the bridge and jumped some more, then we rode out to a more remote area (I say remote but you have to remember that this is overpopulated China) and swam and chilled by the river. It was a nice relaxing day. That night we got on a bus and stayed the night in Guilin. The next day we messed around the city for a bit and then got on the train back to Shanghai and from Shanghai we came back to Nanjing. It was a pretty amazing trip.

This dude uses the birds that are in front of his boat to fish. We watched him do it one night. They catch a fish but can't swallow them because they're necks have been tied. When the guy sees that they've caught one, he grabs the end of the rope around they're neck with his pole and puts the bird on the boat, then he grabs the bird and goes to a little basket on the end of his boat and sqeezes the fish out of its throat. Pretty tight.