Yangshuo County, China

I am sorry to those of you who checked my blog during the past couple of weeks to read the promised Chinese travel updates. I had sincere intentions, but my sincere intentions didn’t make it past the sentinels of limited internet, a phone from which it was difficult to post, and the many, many things I saw and did that kept me far too occupied for writing.

Here, at last, is the first in-depth post about China. I want to write about this trip and share lots of pictures, not only for you, but for me. It was the trip of a lifetime, a special dream of mine come true (I give thanks to God for that), and I want to remember it.

I will start with our arrival and our first three days in Yangshuo County. And every couple of days, as I am able, I will post about another city we visited in China.

Our Arrival

Our first night in China we slept in the airport. After 6 hours on the road, 6 hours of waiting and scurrying around in airports, and 17 hours in the air, we arrived in Guangzhou, China, in the middle of the night. Our friend Liang had booked a hotel for us and sent the address to me in Chinese so we would have it to show a taxi driver.

All the ins and outs of what follows is complicated to explain. To try to put as simply as possible, we didn’t know how to call a taxi, and if we had known how, we had no Chinese yuan with which to pay because we hadn’t changed over our money yet, and the airport’s currency exchange was closed. After much discussion with a Chinese American girl from Wisconsin who was visiting in Guangzhou and offered to help, we learned that Guangzhou taxis do not take credit cards like Chicago taxis do, so that option was closed.

In addition, we could not figure out how to make our Didi app (which is the Chinese form of Uber and which would have taken a credit card) work for us, primarily because I couldn’t figure out how to get my phone connected to internet and, even though Chad’s phone was connected, I didn’t know how to transfer the Chinese hotel address from my phone to his. I mean, you can’t just type in the address on an American keypad when the address is written in Chinese characters, and since my phone wasn’t connected to wi-fi, I couldn’t send the address to him so he could copy and paste.

Confused?

We certainly were. We ended by curling up on the blue airport chairs for the night, along with a smattering of Chinese people. In the morning, Chad was able to get a call through to Liang, and either by good luck or the grace of God (I’m sticking with the latter), when we stepped outside the airport, a taxi driver all the way across the road and on the other side of a divider fence stopped and waved us over. We scrambled across the fence, showed him the hotel address, and were on our way.

Guangzhou was beautiful, green and a bit tropical looking like South Carolina in the springtime. The sky overhead was gray—smog, Liang told us later. Guangzhou is a city of over 14 million people. When you compare that to Chicago’s 3 million and New York City’s 8.5 million, a little smog is not surprising.

Liang talked to the taxi driver over the phone for us, and he agreed to take American money instead of yuan. We showered and breakfasted, and I realized with a bit of panic what I had never considered before entering China—that I would be spending the next two and a half weeks eating with chopsticks. I mean, silverware wasn’t even an option at the hotel’s breakfast buffet, and I had NEVER successfully eaten with chopsticks in my life. I wished, as I scooped about three grains of rice at a time with my chopsticks, that I hadn’t so glibly thrown away the plastic fork they’d given us to eat with on the plane.

I promise you, that situation got better very quickly, and I came home believing that chopsticks beat silverware all hollow. They’re so much fun!

Liang and Sami helped us get our money changed and a few other necessities. A few hours later, we boarded one of China’s modern bullet trains—which travel at a speed of 200-300 kilometers per hour and ride smooth as silk—and headed for Yangshuo County.

What follows will be mostly pictures to give you a glimpse of what we saw.

Yangshuo County

A lion sort of creature, guarding a gate. We saw this creature all over China, always on guard.

This cormorant fisherman posed near the water for pictures with tourists. While this form of fishing is dying out in China, traditionally, the birds are trained to catch fish for the fisherman. The fisherman ties a  snare to the base of the bird’s throat to prevent it from swallowing the larger fish.

Below is bustling West Street in the town of Yangshuo. I read just now, on ChinaTours.com, that it is the the first place in Yangshuo where east and west culture clashed, when, around 1910, a priest preached Christianity in a house on the east end of this street. Beautiful with the lights, isn’t it?

A view across the river. Liang and Sami told us that while Americans—at least rural Americans—like to stay home and stay quiet in the evenings, Chinese people like to come out and have fun. Also, notice the McDonalds across the way!

We ate fish that first night, and it was delicious. The large chunks were so much easier to pick up than the rice at the hotel had been. Liang and Sami showed us how they always unwrap the plates and utensils—yes, each individual place setting comes shrink-wrapped in plastic—and pour hot water over them, just to make sure they are clean. This is the normal practice in their part of China, though we didn’t see it practiced everywhere.

It is also the usual practice for everyone to eat from common dishes in the center, though each person has their individual bowl of rice. YES! Finally a place where I can double dip without recrimination.

Walking the street, we saw a man playing a two-string, violin-like, traditional Chinese instrument which I believe is called an erhu.

We also saw a man who breathed fire.

The walking bridge across the river was bedecked with Chinese lanterns.

The next day was rainy and foggy. We rented scooters with umbrellas and headed for the countryside.

Chad had never driven one before, but he caught on quickly. I was glad to ride.

This is my view from the scooter, sitting behind Chad with Liang and Sami ahead. As we left the town, we passed lines and lines of tourists with umbrellas. You know how China is traditionally known for its parasols? Well, we really did see a lot of them. Only not delicate lacy parasols, but umbrellas of many colors and patterns that people used in sun and rain.

This is an ancient town we visited on our scooters. Not ancient in the sense that nobody lives there, but ancient in architecture.

Red banners are hung on many doorways in China over the time of the New Year and carry positive messages which I, unfortunately, cannot read. The mean-looking men with swords are guards meant to keep evil spirits from entering the home.

There were faded red slogans painted all across these ancient buildings, put there during the time of Mao’s Cultural Revolution.

Here is Sami beside an old poster of Chairman Mao. At one time, almost every home in China would have displayed a similar one.

The countryside in Yangshuo is beautiful and immune to modern farming methods because of the lack of space and the dampness of the soil. The yellow flowers are rapeseed flowers, from which an oil is made that is closely related to the Canadian canola. That’s Sami and I waving from beside the tree.

And here we are a little closer.

And closer still. Since Chad and Liang are both photographers, they took many photos while we just enjoyed the day and the sights.

Here are the two photographers, trying to protect their cameras from the rain.

Liang and Chad went rock climbing in the afternoon while Sami and I watched. Here is Chad, belting up.

Chad had never rock climbed before, but he proved to have a knack for it. The chicken was waiting to be squeaked about halfway to the highest point.

The climbing coach and his wife worked together. They were a great team. They also brought their little boy and the family dog along.

Near our rock climbing site was a cave. The villagers meet here on special occasions.

In the early darkness of the next morning, we woke ourselves and hurried through the streets of Yangshuo and up a mountainside, hoping to get a clear overlook of the city at sunrise after the rain of the day before. Near the top we met a group of four friends who also wanted to see the sunrise.

Unfortunately, after all that work, we saw no sunrise, only fog. And though we all look very chummy here, we couldn’t understand the others’ Mandarin and they didn’t admit to understanding our English. Still, we took pictures.

In daylight, going back down the mountainside, we could see the steps we had climbed in darkness.

We saw a lot free range chickens in China. This picture was taken in the countryside, but we also heard roosters crowing from the town as we climbed the mountain just before dawn. Yangshuo is not a small town by Rusk County standards, so the roosters surprised me. But town roosters and even big city roosters are normal in China, I found by the time our journey was over.

Since our first climb produced no scenic view, later that day we climbed another mountain near a different town in Yangshuo County. This time, we found a better view.

At the top, we met a couple of Germans who LOOKED very German. And going down later, we met an Israeli who looked Israeli, an Australian who looked Australian, and Canadians who looked very North American. An international mountain with cliches all round.

Chad and I also took a leisurely ride down the Yulong River on a bamboo raft, riding like royalty while a boatman poled.

In China, even the flowers come in Chinese lantern shapes.

I don’t know where Chad took this photo, but I love it so much I hope he won’t mind if I share it. A Western lantern and a Chinese lantern, hanging side by side. I will leave this as our last view from Yangshuo County. Next time, Chengdu.