Yangshuo

From Guilin we took a 1.5 hour bus ride to Yangshuo. Yangshuo is a smaller town(300,000 people) surrounded by huge limestone peaks, it is absolutely beautiful! The main part of the town is West street that runs perpendicular to the Li River that runs through the town. The street is lined with vendors, restaurants, and people trying to sell tours, DVDs, ect...

Our hostel was located right on the river and it had a really cool rooftop bar. It offered free breakfast(toast) and free laundry!! Every morning we went to the rooftop to make our toast and drink milk. Unfortunately, it was too cold to ever go up there at night!

On our first full day in Yangshuo we rented bicycles and went for 15 mile ride outside of the town into small villages with farmers, water buffalo, and chickens running around. It was really breath taking!! At one point we had to hire a bamboo raft to cross the river, it cost about $1.50 to cross- then about 2 minutes later we discovered a little man made bridge, so we took that on the way back! Haha! We also climbed up 800 stairs to this rock formation called the Moon, from there we could see the whole town. Our bike day was about 7 hours and a lot of fun!!

One night we went on a cormorant fishing trip. We followed a fisherman that uses cormorant birds to dive down and catch fish. When they surface the fisherman brings the bird to the bamboo raft and chokes the fish out of the birds throat. The birds are free to swim around, so its not torture, and they stay near the boat. It is an ancient way of fishing that is still used today.

We spent the remainder of our time in Yangshuo wandering the streets, playing beer pong at an enclosed rooftop bar, and eating local food. Fortunately our hostel had heat, so we were able to warm up after our days freezing outside! The temperature was about 35-40 during the day and we continued to get many looks in our Spring gear!

We decided to prolong our visit in Yangshuo because Michelle and Rob(our friends from Beijing) arrived!

6 days in Yangshuo an it was time to move on to Nanning to get our visa's to Vietnam!!