Yangshuo...

(get ready for a long post)

On March 12th my group and I left our home of Guzhen to go to Yangshuo for the weekend. It was our first vacation, and everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. Needless to say, after this experience, we will all be expert travelers in the US. So if you're interested in knowing what went wrong and what went right, go ahead and read on.

FRIDAY: We teach regular class from 9-11:35, and then our other class at 3:20-3:50. We left our apartment by 4 to head to the bus station. Get on the bus at five (thinking it only takes two hours to get to Guangshou to get on our train, that leaves at 7:45) So we're on the bus for two hours, than two and a half hours, than two hours and 40 minutes. We finally make it to the final stop, but we have no idea where to go from there to get on the train.  Of course lucky us, the lady we ask speaks english and says she's headed there and to follow her. But she's just slowly walking and all of us are freaking out because we have five minutes to get there and on the train. So we pull out our ticket and show her, and she points us in the right direction and tells us to run. Immediately we all just start booking it. (good thing we all packed light in backpacks) We're headed in the direction we thing is right but start to ask other people where to go. Finally we find the entrance and get through. But as soon as we give our ticket to the lady right before the train, she won't let us in. Luckily AGAIN, and man walks out from the direction we want to go and says in ENGLISH that we can not get on because it is past the time and we have missed the train. He then tell us where we can go to exchange our tickets to get another train ride. We head to where we think he said, but went way out of the way and ended up at a little station that was just phones for your own use. But luckily us again, there was a nice lady who was willing to help us. (a little background here. there is a boy in another group that spoke mandrin on his mission) We call the other group and have him talk to this nice lady who is helping us.  She walked us over to the place to get the tickets. Once there, after a long hard, frustrating time for Erin, here's what happened in a nut shell. The next train to Guilin was Saturday at 6 pm. We weren't ready to hop on that train, when we had nowhere to stay for the night, and we wouldn't even be able to stay in Yangshou for very long before we had to head back home. So when the nice lady is still there helping us, she found out there was a bus leaving at 9:30 to Guilin that night. We took the offer and didn't even care that it was a bus. Still the nice lady walks us all the way over to the bus station, helps us buy our tickets (which luckily the refund from the train covered them) and showed us where to go to get on the bus. We were all in love with this lady for so kindly taking her time to help us poor useless American girls. We got on the bus that wasn't very full so it was nice that we could spread out even though it wasn't that comfortable. They are crazy drivers here in China, specially over night road trips that last 9 hours. More than once I was up out of my seat because we have hit a bump so fast. After waking up and freaking out seeing what was outside as we drove past scary ghost towns multiple times, we finally made it to what we thought was Guilin. (From Guilin you have to take another hour/and a half bus ride to get to Yangshou) They tell us to get off the bus and right there is a man waiting outside. (mind you its now six am or so) We tell him that we need to get a bus to Yangshou. But he kept on insisting that we were already in Yangshou, and we were like NO WE NEED TO GET TO YANGSHOU! He said that we were already there. Fancy that...we missed our train, and got a bus straight there. I knew Heaven Father didn't want us to get on that train for some reason. So we show him the address of the hostel we booked (Monkey Jane's Guesthouse) but he didn't know where it was. He kept trying to get us to stay in his hostel. So then we were wondering ok, are we in the right place? So we called up our other group members who arrived earlier that morning and told us to find a rickshaw and he would take us there. Right then a man pulled up, we got in and he took us straight there. When he dropped us off, he pointed up this tiny little ally way and we were like ok...this is a little sketchy. But it was the right place. We got a room and crashed until 11. We could've slept a lot longer but that's when the other group was meeting.

So now it's SATURDAY:
We got up, ate breakfast on the rooftop of MJ's and it was way yummy. Eggs, toast, bacon, fruit, and orange juice. Best breakfast I had in the last 3 weeks.

We enjoyed the view for a bit up there and then we meet up with the other group and decide we want to rent scooters not bikes. It was soooo much fun. We had all day to drive around and had to bring them back by six. The mountains there are so beautiful. Geographically it blows my mind that they look like that.. compared to Utah mountians, but they are so amazing. Like that will be my word to describe everything cause I can't even come up words that will do it any justice.

We drove around and went to a place called Moon Hill. It's like a Rainbow Bridge but covered in green and it's straight up. We climbed over 800 steps. It was pretty fast because it went up and not a zig zag back and forth. This old lady followed us all the way up, trying to sell us drinks and water. By the time we reached the top we took pictures and relaxed a bit from the big hike (I'm glad we didn't ride bikes and then hike that cause you're legs would have been really feeling it (the scooter ride was a half hour so it would've been twice as long on a bike)) As we're heading back down the mountain we said bye to the old lady and she just told us to "go away" she didn't want anything to do with us since we didn't buy any of her water. We were like ok..we didn't make you climb all the way up here. But we got a good laugh about it.

jumping picture of course

After that we ate at the Moon Hill Cafe at the bottom and I had a delicious chicken sandwich. The bread they have here in china is soooo good. After a late lunch it was time to head back so we could get the scooters back in time. I forgot to mention that the weather was ok. It was really foggy and a bit chilly but still so pretty. We got back at six and then decided to hit West Street that is filled with shopping! We got lots of goodies. After we bargained (and got ripped off, but you have to have at least one thing you get ripped off on right? plus we were amateurs) to our hearts content, and until our feet couldn't last no more we headed back to our beds.

SUNDAY: We woke up at 7:30, had breakfast at a restaurant called Twin Peaks (which we became regulars at) It was one of the most delicious things ever. I had a banana and chocolate pancake (which was really a huge crepe) and toast (amazingly good) and freshly squeezed orange juice. My mouth is watering just writing about it. From breakfast we met with the group again and we got to take a bamboo raft down the Li river. It was a little chilly again today too, but we thought it was supposed to warm up. The ride over all was a couple of hours and our way down it, we ran into this little old man who was a fisherman. He had a little raft with about 4 ducks on it, that did his fishing for him. He came up to our boat and we all got to take our picture with him. He had a hat and straw coat and a bird on his arm that he would make flap it's wings for the picture. He was pretty funny and he would just stand there and sing.

Later down the river we stopped at this village and there was some shopping there too. After we were there for about an hour we headed back up the river. Then we went and had some lunch. You guessed it, at the Twin Peaks. I had an American sandwich that was way good and it had fries with it too. The whole time we were there..lets just say Asians aren't very discrete when snapping a picture of us. But I had fun waving to people who just stared at me. Some times they would laugh and then wave back all embarrassed, but I figured why not wave when they were staring at me anyway..give them something to look at. After lunch we met up again and headed off to the Water Caves. It is this huge cave that has like 5 different stories in it. You have to enter by boat. You get a little tour of it and it was so amazing because you could actually be in it, walk around in it, climb on the walls of the cave and touch the stalagmites. Gotta love China. In one of the levels is a mud pool. So we got to play around in it. It was freezing cold though, but all of us just endured it, thinking when are we ever going to do this again? They snap some pictures for you and they even have computers in the cave that you can see the pictures and they print them out right then and there. After we played in the mud, you have to rinse off. In freezing cold water. But the good thing about it was that a few levels up in the cave there are hot springs. So we hurried up there and were loving the warm water. We were in there for a half hour and then it was time to head out. The whole time we were in the cave was probably a total of 2 hours probably. But it was so cool, I did buy a few pictures that are pretty funny. And I threw away my swimming suit cause it was nasty. After that we came back, had dinner at an Wood Oven place that was way good. Then we did some more shopping, but didn't last nearly as long as the night before. We went up to our rooms and found a cockroach in Kristen's bed, that was sick, but she killed it.

MONDAY: We slept in and woke up to the poring rain. We went to breakfast at Twin Peaks again, and I got the cheese omelet which was way good. I miss cheese. We had to be out of our hostel by 12 but our bus home didn't leave until 8 so we just kept one room and split the cost so we didn't have to carry our stuff around all day long. We didn't really know what to do, and everything we wanted to do we had already checked off the list. So we just shopped around some more. Got a manicure and our fingernails painted. We still had a ton of time, and decided to get a massage. The funniest thing I've ever experienced. Me and Catelin were in the same room and I had to try so hard to not bust up laughing every second. They are rough with you. They slap, smack, and beat you up. My legs are so ticklish. I didn't know what to do. The lady didn't speak any english and how could I tell her that it tickled and to stop? So I just held it and was dying. And then you roll over and they massage your butt and it's the funniest thing. when cate opened her eyes, she saw the lady smacking mine and it was so funny! We got some dinner (our last good westeren dinner we would have for a while) and waited for the buses to come pick us up. Since we missed the train the first time, we just got a bus back instead of the train, and the people at the hostel hooked us up with a sleeper bus this time. We get all of our stuff and head on the bus. But it's full. So the guy goes around and kicks people out of the sleepers. Apparently you can ride the bus and get a sleeper, but if someone gets on who bought a ticket, you get kicked to the floor. It was the smelliest bus, because you can't wear your shoes, so it stunk like Asian stinky nasty feet. Awesome 9 hours of that. It turned to be a little longer, and after we got to the final stop and tried to get our luggage out from underneath we found out that where our luggage had been there was all these boxes and big bags of who knows what. I was like awesome all my luggage and souvenirs are gone. But they had just moved everything and we got everything we put in, now it was just dirtier. Just the way I like my things....

TUESDAY morning and we were in Guangshou, we foundthe ticket office and showed the ticket lady the paper that says bus to Guzhen to get us home, but she just shakes her head no. We find out that we are at the wrong bus station (since we didn't ride the train back, we're at a different station then the one we need to be) This man takes us in this little van to the right bus station we need to be to get on the bus to Guzhen. We get our tickets and get in line. There are a billion people in line to get on this bus, we are like what the crap, there is no way we can fit this many people. Our ticket doesn't have a seat number so we think that we're going to have to stand for the next two hours home. A bus pulls up and we are just doing it the asian way and butting in line to get on this bus. Me, Erin, and Catelin make it through, but they stop Courtney and Kristen. We were like no, we're with them, so we need to stay or they need to come. They was another bus that was coming, but luckily there was enough room that we could all ride the bus that was already there. Two painful hours of sitting on the bus later we make it back to Guzhen, by 11. Our home sweet home (something we thought we'd never say).
It was one of the funnest vacations and it was such an amazing place. If you ever go to China, that is one place I would definitely recommend going to. So worth it. Love You Long Time Yangshuo