Yangshuo

A short morning bus ride brought us to little Yangshuo, a backpacker-heavy village with a way chilled out atmosphere, and the most beautiful of landscapes. Surrounded by the karst formations which have made the area famous through centuries of Chinese tourism (seriously), we had an amazing 3 days of hiking, biking, bamboo rafting, and swimming.

Our first morning in town we serendipitously ran into Claire and Aaron, the couple we'd met in Guangzhou a few days earlier. They were great travel buddies and sweated right alongside us through all our adventures of the next few days. After Ben and I found ourselves a great deal on a cozy room with AC, we rented some bikes and headed out to Yueliang Shan (Moon Hill), one of the iconic views of the region. A short but steep hike up to the archway yielded beautiful views, and a hike to the very top of the stone arch left us with a panorama of the region.

The next day we took a bus to the small village of Xingping where we floated along the Yu Long River on a "bamboo" raft (PCV pipes), passing water buffalo and picture-perfect landscape. Ben went for a swim alongside for awhile, making the rest of us jealous.

Our last day in town, we rented bikes again, and followed the Li River in the direction of a swimming hole that we'd heard about. This was the hottest day by far, and after several mysterious forks in the road, we definitely needed a rest. Ben and a Dutch guy we were with biked on a ways, looking for this dream spot we'd heard about, while the rest of us cooled off in the river right where we were, being careful to stay on the far side from the wallowing water buffalo. After weathering a small (but dramatic-looking!) thunder-storm, we decided to push on, and after a good local meal, we came around a corner to find this: perfection. Needless to say, we spent the rest of the afternoon there amid great company: swimming, reading, and drinking... Ben talks about it like he found the back way into heaven.

As the light started to fall, we biked home with all the people we'd met at the river, following country lanes. We were treated to views like the one below, and as sunset brought cooling temperatures, we just blissed out all the way back into town.