We stayed in Yangshou overnight at the sister hostel to the one we are staying at in Guilin. It is in a good position down an alley of the main tourist street, but is much smaller. It’s clean and tidy and the staff are helpful (although not particularly friendly), but the wet room is minute and doesn’t have enough water pressure to have a shower. Today the weather is warm and dry, so we have decided to get out into the countryside – something we regret not having done more of during our travels through China. We hire mountain bikes, which turn out to be surprisingly good, and a guide and we set off to pick up a bamboo raft which will take us (and the bikes) to a spot two hours down the Dragon River, a tributary of the Li. From there we can cycle to Moon Hill and back to Yangshou.
Our guide is also our boatman and after about 30 minutes cycling we arrive at the wharf, where he hires the bamboo raft complete with reclining seats and a parasol for shade. This turns out to be a delightful, rather too popular, beauty spot and it’s obvious why as we punt slowly down this idyllic little river. The bamboo raft is the water transport of choice here. They are made of six thick bamboo poles curved at the front and back and tied together with wire. The seats are tied to the cross struts and give the raft a distinctly top-heavy appearance, but turn out to be a very relaxing way to take in the scenery. This is the life! As we glide along we pass several rafts moored in the middle of the river selling anything from cold drinks to cooked food (prepared fresh on the premises) all accompanied by the usual entreaties to purchase. There are several weirs along the way many of which we are able to run fully loaded getting our feet wet in the process. Others are too high and we have to disembark and haul the raft across and climb aboard on the other side. Even here there are photo stations set up on rafts on the river complete with all the computer kit to print and laminate your photo as you plunge across the weir. Of course, at 30 Yuan (£2.80) we can’t resist and now have another boating pic to sit alongside the one taken on the Dordogne last year!
Our journey is over far too quickly and we disembark and cycle about 15 minutes to Moon Hill Park. This hill is celebrated because it is a giant natural arch. After lunch in the park we set of to make the steep climb to the top. The inevitable hawkers are congregated at the foot of the hill, as they are at every tourist attraction, selling cold drinks and postcards. Here they are particularly persistent and we acquire our own personal hawker who accompanies us all the way to the top fanning us as we go, and all for the price of a couple of cokes. All the hawkers seem to use this tactic to sell their wares, not always successfully. Some of the tourists here won’t entertain them, and find them irritating, but who can begrudge them when they are only trying to make a living the best they can? And what a tough way to make it too, scaling a mountain several times a day at 20 (£1.80) yuan a time.
We don’t manage to scale the whole mountain as the path degenerates from steps to a rough scramble and we are exhausted by the time we rearch the arch, in any case. But the views even from this point are spectacular, and well worth the effort. Although, disappointingly, none of the photos we have taken since leaving Guilin really do justice to this magical landscape.
Talking of which, we have now uploaded most of our pictures up to Wuhan and also created a ‘Hattie’ folder for all those of you who want to follow her adventures specifically without having to trawl through the 100s that are on the site. Also we’ve started a ‘silly signs’ folder to capture some of the amusing translations we have seen along the way.
Do leave a message when you visit the sight – even if it is just to say ‘hello’. We like to know there are people out there!
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