China Tour 2012 - Guilin to Yangshuo

It is 10pm and the day seems as if it started yesterday - this has been another long day. We left the hotel after a nice western breakfast and drove about 40 minutes to catch a river boat for our Li River cruise. For the next four hours we were treated to beautiful views along the river on our way to Yangshuo. The photos don't really do it justice. We had a great time though it was hot and humid and some of us got a lot of sun!

We arrived in Yangshuo, walked to our hotel and checked in then had about an hour to cool off before our bicycle adventure - and indeed it was. You have not lived until you have navigated a bicycle on the streets of a city in China. Oh my god! This is for people with no fear. I quickly learned that you just go and don't give anyone else an inch, be they pedestrian, bicycle, scooter, car, bus, or truck. Imagine a traffic circle full of all of the above, then imagine yourself in it with horns honking and no one backing off. I am amazed that no one is run over! Even when we got out of town you had to be very careful on the country roads not to get run off the road.

Our guide Jenny taking our picture

Rice

We stopped on our ride to allow some of our group to ride bamboo boats down the river. Sharon and I elected to continue on the road. The rest of the crew took the boats and their bicycles went ahead on a truck. We met them all down the road and then biked back into town where we all showered before dinner.

Dinner was in a local spot close to the restaurant and was quite tasty. The centerpiece dish was fish with tomatoes. We had our usual drinks of Coke and beer. And then it was on to the evening spectacular show! the show was a spectacle but it was god awful hot and we were all sweating like crazy next to 3,000 other hot and sweaty people. The show itself was very pretty but we were all glad to get out of there and back on the air conditioned bus and then back to our hotel.

Good night!