Oh my gosh! This place is amazing! This is from the roof of my hostel!! 2 floors above my room.
After catching my breath from the view for a few minutes I head back down stairs in excitement and get my stuff to book my river cruise and river show for the night. Because laundry was free i also decide to take advantage of that. Laundry only allowed after 1:00pm but i sneak my load in thinking after hitting the town for lunch i can come back and hang the clothes out to dry. No dryer here. Laundry is in and im off to hit the little town for a look and lunch. It is such a cool little town!
My friend is still here.
Hostel highly recommended this place. Everyone on the street eating lunch was here. All the other restaurants were empty. This place does what's called the clay pots. Rice bowls cooked and served in a clay pot.
View from the table.
Right after I take this picture these girls started talking to me and were very intrigued by American boy. They look way young but they are college students. 19-22 year olds. Asians are always, 5-12 years younger than you think, remember that! And when you ask ALL of them ask to guess. Guess a young age everyone and they love it lol!
These girls were awesome. They asked if they could eat with me. Of course I was happy to have friends. They wanted to practice there English too and I told them I would help them.
It started to pour rain while eating. See the clay pots! It was good. I had a shrimp and crab meat with fried rice. The run hit me through a leak in the tarp the whole lunch. These girls LOVED Taylor Swift. They asked me about American culture. It was nice to tell them and to be asked questions for a change! How priceless are these encounters. If not alone I probably would never have this kind of experience. Solo traveling has a ton of benefits actually and I like it a lot. It seems you are never alone. I get much more lonely at home which is surprising to me.
Pouring rain and I realize after such a long conversation I gotta hurry and go hang my laundry up!
On way back I see this little river flowing through Yangshuo.
I get back and it's time for the tour guide to pick me up. I have no time to hang laundry!!! So it's just sitting in a pool of water. I have no idea why but the washer didn't drain! Crap! I hurry and get my stuff in a water proof bag and go. Swimsuit and a t shirt because it feels so much hotter here and its raining. This turned out to be a huge mistake.
The tour guide comes and tells me we have to walk for about 15 minutes. But it is 10 till and the bus will not wait. I made us 5 minutes late! And he says, where is your jacket!?!? Little does he know all my clothes are in a washer full of water.
This guy is walking so slow! Are we not running late? Let's go I'm thinking!! We walk up and he waves at a guy. This van pulls away next to us and the new guy he waved at yells and chases after the van and tells me to run to it and get in. I'm hurried in and the van takes off. I begin thinking when will I get in a vehicle and have any idea where it is going? Pictures of the journey:
We finally stop and some guy is trying to repair the road or something like that.
Pictures of the scenery while we wait.
They finally tell us we have to walk across. A woman was actually wearing high heels. You gotta be kind of dumb to wear high heels on a river boat excursion. It took her forever! We arrive at the boat!
And we're off!
Here come a bunch of pictures of the scenery with random commentary. This was fun but it was so cold!! I can't pick the right days to wear shorts or pants it seems. I always get it wrong, or the iPhone weather app does.
Chinese house boat!
I move to the top quick so I can get a good seat. I move to the very front and sit next to this Chinese family. I say hi to this girl who is sitting next to me and she tells me she is excited to meet a foreigner, especially from America. Her family was also do excited I was talking to her.
We talked about the different customs of American and Chinese customs and culture. It was difficult at first, very difficult. Because of the language barrier. After an hour of talking her English improved a lot. You know I respect and admire these people a lot. Here I am in their country and they are trying to learn English to speak with me. Amazing. And ironic. English really is a way for them to further their career and to make more money though. I tried my best to help her with her English. It was awesome seeing her improve in such a short time. She has learned in school but they get very little practice outside big tourist places. Her name is Wuxiaoshuang. Her family was on a little vacation here. They live in Chengdu I think.
Our view.
Her family was so nice!! They immediately started feeding me.
These small style of fruit are popular here. I don't remember the name. Similar to an orange but different.
The egg was weird lookin. That is the brown shell on the table. But same great taste.
More scenery.
After an hour or an hour and a half the scenery got way way better!
Notice my rain gear. Not because of rain but because I was cold and it's all I have!
You see these guys on the river a lot.
The further we went the better the scenery got.
I could not put my camera down.
These mountains and river are on the back of the Chinese 20 Yuan.
After the amazing experience I went down for a snack. I was the only brainiac with no coat, no food and no drinks. I was starving so I devoured these fried fish. Not that great but not horrible.
Went up for a last few shots!
As you can see I'm a very happy man. No where else in the world can you experience this. What an amazing place!
Well that about wraps up my day in the life. The lows and the highs. Most days are not as extreme but it seems everyday I get lucky in many small and sometimes big ways. I think sometimes you just gotta move forward even if you are not sure and learn as you go.
I have also come to realize we can trust people too. How many people helped me get to this little town!?!? At times you are at the mercy of others and feel powerless so its important to be in tune and to read things to know what to do. You do have to trust others when traveling like this though. I do feel in tune and have immense faith in God and myself.
This was also a great experience because I connected with some great people here too. They fed me and made me feel so welcome. I spoke with my new friend all day and on the bus back. She must have thanked me 20 times for speaking with her. These people are so great. connecting with the people is the most rewarding part, even more than some of the worlds best scenery.
I feel so blessed to be able to have this epic experience. I think the scenery made it obvious there is a creator. I feel so blessed right now and the road to Yangshuo was well worth it! If you come to China, come to Southern China, you have been warned. This day and experience was way better than anything else besides maybe the Great Wall. Yangshuo was easily my favorite stop in China though. I now have a desire to come back to Southern China.
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