I’m in Yangshuo right now, totally spent after a really long day of traveling and sightseeing. So I’m going to type as much as I can in ten minutes about the last day of our journey.

When we got to the train station in Zhuzhou last night to get our tickets to Guilin (the big city near Yangshuo), we discovered that there weren’t any hard sleepers … or soft seats … or even hard seats. So we (Heidi, Rick, and I) reluctantly bought general boarding passes, joining the throngs of people who would fight for buttroom on the already packed hard benches. On the train, we pretty much lucked out (though I’m not sure Heidi or Rick would agree) … getting to sit for the entire thing and even getting window seats eventually (where we could quasi-snooze). We arrived in Guilin at 5am, exhausted but gearing up for a full day.

As we exited the train, we randomly ran into Marissa and Vanni, two other WT volunteers, who happened to go to the exact same city as we did, on the same exact train! We then bought our return train tickets ahead of time (hard sleepers this time!) and got on a bus for Yangshuo. As soon as we got off the bus, we met a nice young man named Steven who had a clean and affordable hotel nearby. We took him up on his offer then spent a couple hours catching up on some zzz’s.

After a fairly good lunch (well, mine was at least), we went into a more tourist-y part of town to do some window shopping. Everything was overpriced and the salespeople were way too pushy and used to ripping off foreigners, so we didn’t buy much. But it was entertaining, nonetheless … and I really do think that this is a charming city.

In the late afternoon, I rented a bike and rode into the countryside, getting some fresh air, a further taste of some rural China, and a little bit of exercise. I got lost on the way back, but eventually made it in time for dinner. We ate at a restaurant with a smorgasbord on the menu … I settled for some good ‘ol pizza. Mmm … cheeze.

Then we went back to the hotel, where we had arranged to be taken to a light show on the river. We boarded some motorcycle taxis, rode through the city, rode through a backwater town, and walked over some makeshift bamboo rafts to get to an elevated floating dock. The show was amazing … I don’t even think I can describe some of the things that they did, but our view was a little limiting (we had the “cheap seats” on the property next door to the actual outdoor theatre). After that, we walked around the markets a little more before coming home.

Tomorrow should be a jam-packed day too … we’ll meet in the morning, rent some bikes, then ride out to the countryside. We’ll then board some bamboo rafts (with the bikes) and float down the river for 2 or 3 hours. At the end, we’ll ride to Water Cave, a famous attraction with spelunking, mudbathing, and clear underground pools. We’ll then bike back into Yangshuo, possibly spending the night watching some cormorant fishing (men with birds trained to catch fish and spit them up on the boat).

So that’s that. How was your day?

Posted to webeldotnet on Thursday, November 16th, 2006 at 11:34 pm EST in China & My Life (comment feed). If you refer to this post on your blog, please trackback. Thanks!