China - outskirts escapade ep 1

After Shanghai, we were off to China’s lesser known cities. I really didn't expect how mind-blowing these cities would be in this massive country!

Guilin

Yangshuo 

We flew 2 hours from Shanghai to Guilin with Fabs’ parents, where we said our goodbyes and went our separate ways. The drive from Guilin airport to Yangshuo took another 1.5 hours where we had our first glimpses of the limestones’ silhouettes soaring up on either side of the road at night.

Yangshuo pedestrian road on the main area

Small but very vibrant local tourist town

View of this beautiful lake in town first thing in the morning

The next morning we got ready for our mountain bike tour which would take 3 days. As Fabs has recently competed in triathlons, he’s no stranger with a bike. For me it was a little different, as the last time I rode was probably 10 years ago and it was only to supermarket with my sister; even that only took 10 minutes which ended with us both exhausted in her house drinking beers. Needless to say, this was going to be a struggle. BIG time. As it turned out, I was alright with the downhills, and even the off-bumpy-as roads; but the uphill almost killed me.  And there were many of them!

One of the many hills on day one

In hindsight I could've fallen, destroyed my face or superman'd straight into the abyss

There were five of us, 2 couples and 1 guide. I felt quite bad for the other couple in our tour, as they were awesome cyclists and patiently waited for me whenever I was facing my darkest hours in my uphill battles. A few times I even had to get off my bike and tow it as I couldn’t conquer the steep hills. Our guide was surprised (“WHY DID YOU TAKE A BIKING ADVENTURE TOUR?!” was her reaction when I told her when was the last time I rode) and impressed in the same time when we finished the tour.

Always in the back 😅

Everywhere across China, card games seem to be the favourite past time

Crossing the river with our bikes

I had seen some vlogs about Guilin, but I didn’t realise how gorgeous it actually was until I saw it in person! Especially while we were riding and when we hiked to the TV tower in Xinping!

Looked familiar? Avatar was filmed here!

Xinping town centre - dead after 5.00 pm when hordes of day trip tourists departed

We did about 2 and half days of riding and half day of rock climbing. Who knew, apparently, Guilin is world famous for rock climbing?!

I enjoyed climbing. I'm the little ant about halfway up the mountain

Fabs – not a natural

In total, we rode for 115 km. My bum was sore, my legs were so tired, I had spasms on my arms. I was in pain generally. But, it was SO worth it.

Unfortunately on the second day whilst we were riding, the guy from the other couple (John) got a bit sick. Seemingly nothing too bad to worry about, until the next day, his wife started throwing up about an hour before the end of the tour. They couldn’t make it to our last dinner, but then Fabs started to get sick during dinner!  It was imminent it would hit me. True enough, we were both up at dawn vomiting our guts out.

Beer fish - Guilin traditional dish. Maybe be the culprit! 

Dazhai Rice Terraces

Yangshuo is approximately a 4.5 hour car ride south of Dazhai. Our guide told us to repack before Dazhai, and to only take 3 nights’ worth of luggage in a small backpack whilst leaving our big bags in the ticket office. This would have been smart, but we were so crook the night before we couldn’t really think straight. I was so glad we organised a private car transfer as the bus would have taken much longer despite the significant cost saving. Somehow, we made it to the ticket office about 3 hours in (entrance to the national park); Fabs gallantly volunteered to wobble out of the car to grab us the tickets, some bananas and crackers. After the treacherous car journey which felt like eternity, we finally reached the bottom of the rice terrace mountains.

We were greeted by the Yao people, the first minority Chinese we saw in our trip (majority of Chinese is Han people).

It could be the next hair fashion - forehead bun

The whole area is seemingly only accessible by foot with stone stairs hugging the mountains. I threw up half of the banana along the way – I hope no one slipped on it and fell down the slippery slope. Lucky we had these lovely old aged local women to help us with our heavy luggage.

For ¥50/piece the 60++ years old ladies carried our bags for us; the city youngsters, up to our accommodation 40 minutes uphill

We stayed in this B&B for 3 days, with the most jovial landlady that cooked our meals, gave Fabs some Chinese medicine for his tummy ache and pointed out the viewpoints. We didn’t do the planned 8 hours’ round trek to Ping'an, which was highly recommended by Lonely Planet; instead we only went out to 1 viewpoint which was 30 minutes’ walk from our accommodation. The rest of the time we just played with her gorgeous dog, or holed up inside our room in the fetal position being sick, sore and useless.

Rice terraces stretch out as far as the eye can see

Our cure, Hoppu

Our China adventure continues - Chengdu next!