We were picked up at 8am by the taxi to take us to the tour bus in the centre of Guilin where we were met by a coach and several other tourists waiting for a little adventure. Our tour guide was a lovely camp chap who was very sweet indeed often repeating the delights of Yangshou “the most beautiful town in the province and the one of the most beautiful towns in all of China!”. We were promptly told that we would be in his team and our instruction was to follow the panda flag. So far we’ve managed to escape the tour groups led by flags so this was our first encounter of this, and we wondered whether we had chosen to do the right thing at 380 RMB each this better be good!!

We met a Dutch couple on holiday in China and exchanged travel tales as the boat set off. We shared the slow boat with a few other tour groups and every so often we would get called up onto the top deck for the best views in all of China. Unfortunately the weather didn’t really help in assisting it’s beauty but on a misty day it was still very beautiful indeed. The light was pretty flat for the most part but we hope the photos give you an idea of what we encountered. We were able to take our bags on board so we could carry on from Yangshou at the other end rather than making it a return journey to Guilin. The boat journey was around 4 hours and we had 4 main sights, although there are sights all the way and either on a bamboo raft or the slow boat you’ll get some amazing views on a clear day. There are various peaks names along the way such as Half-moon peak and 11 horse cliff, but the most memorable and probably famous is the one of that is pictured on a 20 Yuan note. The picture is a sketched out version of the Li River with several karst peaks jutting out of the landscape and a lonely man on a bamboo raft. Many moons ago this image would have been a reality but now there are so many tour boats and bamboo rafts on the river it’s pretty hard to enjoy the original views. Still it’s worth seeing and we were laughing at the count down to the view…5 more seconds and you will see the image on the 20 yuan note, 3 more seconds, 2 more seconds, 1 more second and so it went on. We saw the view, no bamboo raft but it was fun all the same.

We were provided with a buffet style lunch which was very fortunately served up just as we were exploring the downstairs part of the boat, this mean’t we were at the front of the queue and the food was hot. It wasn’t a bad lunch actually, you can pay more for the local dishes but there isn’t any point if you plan to go to Yangshou as you can eat there very cheaply. There were a few amusing tourists on board that captured our eye for a while until the boat got in to Yangshou at around 1pm.

We promptly said our goodbye’s and left the tour group to find our hotel/Inn; The Bamboo Inn. When we arrived they said we could move to their quieter hotel, The Bamboo Hotel down from the street if we wanted to go and have a look, we asked the see the room with balcony but there was a big gap in the door and as it was pretty chilly so we went to see the other hotel to compare. We were a little miffed about this as you have to wonder why are they taking us to their sister hotel and not showing us other rooms at the one we CHOSE to book? The room at the other hotel was fine and a little more modern but it’s still an odd one why they do this! The price was still the same though at 80yuan per night and we had only planned to stay 2 nights in the town itself before moving to a recommended hostel 15 minutes walk away in a quieter village out of town.

We walked around Yangshou’s busy streets that afternoon and bumped into Will again from TUL (The Unemployed Life) he was rounding up people for the Monkey Jane’s NYE party along with a few others. We had already heard about the infamous Monkey Jane’s hostel from other travelers along the way and knew this was where the party would be if any were going on in town for New Years. We dropped by to pick up our tickets and free t-shirt after meandering the streets of Yangshou it was pretty busy, we’d been told on our tour that Yangshou attracts around 15 million Chinese visitors each year…we were just glad we weren’t visiting during peak season as it was busy enough for us.

We enjoyed a quiet night and opted to do a bike ride the following day.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

After a much needed lie in we got up and enjoyed a Wada breakfast eventually getting out at around midday to see some of Guilin’s sights. We booked ourselves onto a boat tour to take us to Yangshou the following day, the tour costs were pretty pricey but we thought it would be a nice alternative to getting another bus. So with this booked we went out on the local buses to central Guilin and made our way to the scenic Solitary Beauty Peak based at the very centre of all the Karst peaks in Guilin and now with the University Campus set around it. It was quite a pleasant walk to this area through side streets and alleys, close to the Li River. Guilin is built in and around these peaks and the central peak is supposed to be this one with a small shrine and temple on top. The peaks aren’t very high but they are extremely steep, the more touristy ones have steps up (like this one), and they don’t take very long to climb but as they jut out of the ground so suddenly you will always get good views up there.

This one was a little busy with other tourists but we took our time around the campus and tried to avoid the tourist traps. On top of the peak are a few souvenir shops one of which occupied a girl who was sleeping over her stall. They will fall asleep anywhere over here!

After the peak we took in a few more sights around the city and went to a slightly more westernised local restaurant but did enjoy the food and it was nice and cosy in there too. We continued to walk along the river side towards Elephant mountain which looked like a nicer area to walk but we’d already paid for the entrance to the Beauty Peak and decided to save a few pennies by bypassing other peaks. The Elephant peak area does look really nice though and is perhaps a better value walk for your money.

We found our bus back to Wada and went back to the hostel to chill out. Later on we enjoyed a few drinks in the bar and then went to the local shopping mall for some food in Japanese form. We finished the evening off with a walk back to the hostel and got an early night ready for our early pick up the next morning.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)