From Yangshuo to Western China

Friday evening: The weather cleared, it stopped raining so we climbed to the top of the peak in the park in the middle of Yanshuo and were greeted by a beautiful view of both the city and the mountains.

Saturday: This was our last full day at Owen College in Yangshuo and it was the first really clear sunny day since we arrived in China. So, we rented bicycles, found a group of about a dozen students from the college and went off on a bicycle trip down the Yu Long River. We rode for several hours going from two lane concrete roads, to one-lane roads to dirt roads to mud paths between the rice paddies. John, one of our leaders first had a chain mishap and then a flat tire on his bike that he managed to get fixed by finding the village bicycle repair person and waiting for him to arrive. Finally we stopped for lunch at a narrow concrete bridge over the river. There was an outdoor restaurant with separate cooking shack. One of the students ordered lunch which consisted of about five dishes: fish, chicken, pork, tofu and vegetables. The owner of the restaurant netted some fish that were in an impoundment along the side of the river. The fish flopped around on the concrete pad until he came over to slaughter them. The wife of the owner took a chicken killed, plucked and cleaned it in the river. While we waited for lunch to be served, a few of the guys took out bamboo rafts on to the river and poled back and forth. Lunch was served family style. The chicken was bony, the fish had bones and scales and had to be picked to get to the flesh. The students savored the fish organs as well as the fish itself. I again felt like becoming a vegetarian and relied on the tofu dish for my source of protein. The pork however was very good.

After lunch we all went on the river in bamboo rafts while Alex and John poled us around. Judy and I taught English songs to the students including Row Your Boat, I Love to Go A'Wandering (Valderie) and Bicycle (by Queen). Finally we took off again in search of the "old" Dragon Bridge across the Yu Long River. After several hours more of riding, two false turns, another flat tire, and a side visit to the Li Familial House (only about 100 years old) we arrived at the bridge.

We had made plans to take an early bus to Guilin with Trent (the acting director), who would arrange for us to see some if the city and then get us to our plane. We totally misunderstood that Trent was going to a job's fare and that we were going to help him interview Chinese applicants for jobs at the college. We tested the fluency of around twenty people and rated their proficiency. We then met a group of local students who took us for a walk in a park and down to the Li river which runs through thew city. The plan was for Trent to meet us with our luggage. Of course he was late and we had to rush to make the plane. Judy asked the driver to hurry and he drove like a madman. We think that none of them have flow or realized that you have to arrive at least an hour in advance.

We arrived in Kunming airport, two hours to the west of Guilin, booked our return flight to Hong Kong, found a hotel room and took a minibus into town. The next morning we took a bus to Stone Forest (Shi Lin), about 90 km from Kunming. This formation of pinnacles, passageways, mazes, balance rocks, are the eroded remains of limestone mountains (karst). The park was overrun with Chinese tourists in groups led by guides dressed in clothes of the local ethnic minority, but very much in costume.