Guilin to Yangshou

The underground lake in Reed Flute Cave, Guilin. It's hard to see but it looked like the skyline of a large city at dark.

A typical scene of the karsts as taken from the car.


The main shopping and dining street in Yangshou. It reminded us of a Chinese Bourbon Street before the hurricane.


A typical souvenir shop, as you can see, something for everybody.

After we drove the two hour drive back to Guilin from Ping An and did a little local sightseeing, we proceeded on to Yangshou, where we would spend the next two nights. We had pictured Yangshou as another sleepy village plopped into the middle of the karsts and the rice paddies. If I didn’t mention it, Hill, our guide, while sweet enough, was fairly clueless and couldn’t explain very well what was coming next, so we had a few surprises on this leg of the journey, Ping An being the first of these. Hill, which is the translation of his Chinese name, is 25, his English was pretty poor and his pronunciation almost unintelligible. This was unusual because all of our previous guides spoke good to excellent English.

But sometimes it’s better not to know what’s in store because then your pre-conceived ideas can take over and color your attitude pro or con. It was kind of nice to just relax and take what comes.

When we drove into Yangshou we were surprised to find that it was not a quiet little village, but a booming resort town where mostly Chinese come from all over China for a little R and R. Our hotel, the Paradeso, was at the top of the main tourist street which teemed with people shopping, eating, drinking, and socializing. There were some Big Noses, but not many. Yangshou sits on the Li River, a beautiful meandering waterway surrounded on both sides by the legendary karsts, so the scenery alone would be a reason for its popularity. But there is more there than the scenery.

We arrived late afternoon and Mary and I couldn’t wait to investigate what looked like the best shopping opportunity we had had in some time and maybe the last of the trip. We were not disappointed. When evening came the four of us started to explore the street and look for a restaurant, but the shops were most tempting and it was hard to think about food. Eventually, though, husbands prevailed and we found a sidewalk cafe that wasn’t too crowded and ate some local food (beerfish) and drank some local beer and enjoyed some of the best people watching of the trip. The shopping would have to wait.