Caoping, the Li River, and Xingping

This morning Sofia and I caught a bus to the long-distance bus station and with some effort found our bus to Caoping, a small village a bit south of Guilin along the Li River. This experience reminded me of my time in Guangdong before making it to Guangzhou, particularly the bus station and dealing with no English, no English signs, and a chaotic environment filled with all the weird people who usually hang out at bus stations. Apparently that is one thing America and China have in common. So we got on the bus, which was actually more of a minibus or shortbus if you will, and circled Guilin for a while picking up more passengers. At each location, this woman would get out of the bus and walk around shouting to people and telling them where we were going, in case you happened to be a random passerby suddenly interested in a chance of scenery. We finally got out of Guilin and the scenery got really rural and really interesting pretty quickly. The number of jagged limestone hills rising out of nowhere gradually increased, as did the number of farms and people wearing those conical hats you see in the movies. We drove through these rural outskirts of Guilin for a while finally arriving at Guanyan village, near or the same as Caoping, I couldn't figure that out. We were the only white people the whole way, and the bus driver had already told us about his friend who had a boat and would take us down the Li River if we were interested. I told him we'd see what happens when we got there. His friend was waiting for us, a pleasant lady who wasn't too pushy which was appealing since we were simultaneously assailed by about 5 old woman who wanted to sell us fruit. They hang it in a bag in front of your face repeatedly shouting prices at you, and will not go away. Politely declining, less politely declining, it is all futile. Walking away eventually worked. We ended up striking a deal with this woman who helped us get onto the boat and set us on our way. We had our own boat, which was pretty great. The walk to the boat was kind of cool. We walked through these streets of Guanyan and there are chickens, pigs, and other animals just hanging out in no particular designated area. That was the first time I saw that. I guess I am a city slicker. We made it to the boat, and after some negotiating he let us sit on the bow for the trip where we were treated to ridiculous views of these endless limestone peaks and cliffs jutting out in every direction, and passed numerous bamboo rafts as the sun shined down and we sped down the Li River towards Yangshuo. We got off near to Xingping, or at least what was supposedly near to Xingping, and walked down the road to which we were directed, but it took at least a few miles to make it to the town itself. We didn't mind since the scenery was crazy. This was an unpaved, tiny, untrafficked road through farmland and the occasional house. Everyone we saw was friendly enough, a few trying to sell us various things, but generally just saying hello, sometimes in English, sometimes in Chinese. Although this is apparently a 'touristy' thing to do, we didn't really see any other tourists, except maybe a few Chinese folks with cameras. Along the river is a different story. Although it was by no means crowded, in the span of our hour or so journey we saw at least 10-15 larger cruiseboats go by though not many of them were filled with people since this isn't the high season. It is possible to take a 6 hour cruise all the way from Guilin to Yangshuo (about 85 km) but apparently that is an extremely touristy experience comparable to the caves I described yesterday, complete with megaphone-augmented descriptions and hundreds of squawking tourists. Riding on the front of the boat we had to ourselves was great and far preferable. I felt a bit like Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now without all the napalm.

So we made it to Xingping in one piece after our few mile nice walk and agreed that staying for a night before heading to Yangshuo was very appealing. We found a place that was identified in one of our books as being backpacker friendly, so we checked it out and it was again $5US per person, but this time we have our own room and bathroom and it's very clean, so we went for it and subsequently managed to score a pretty tasty all-vegetarian meal, though we probably ordered more than we should've. We did some damage to our Mapo Dofu, Sweet and Sour vegetables, Fried Noodles, and yes, French Fries, and it was all only about $6US anyway. That includes the giant beer we shared before taking a walk around the quiet town (the one big street) and finding this internet cafe by accident. I haven't been to Yangshuo yet but I imagine it was something like this maybe 10 years ago. This place hasn't really gotten its tourist feet yet, but it looks like it is on the way. It's nice to have found a quiet spot to relax in such a beautiful area and with so few tourists or even people around. Our hotel is right along the river and the view is amazing. Tomorrow we're thinking about taking another boat down the river, maybe a smaller bamboo raft this time or something like it, and enjoying the rest of the trip through this amazing place. Apparently Yangshuo is more of the same, and it is possible to cheaply rent bikes and explore more villages like these during the day. It's pretty amazing and more like I imagined China before I came here. It is certainly a far cry from Guangdong and the other areas I've been so far.

I've had a bunch of really good days since arriving in Guangxi. It's been nice having company to travel with, especially someone who is also vegetarian who appreciates finding the meals we have been. The atmosphere in general here is relaxed and people are friendly. The worst thing I can say about it is constantly having people shouting at you or coming up to you wanting you to buy things, who will not leave or accept "no thank you" as an answer, but that is something to which I am rapidly becoming accustomed. Other than that, this place is wonderful and I'm happy to have made it to such an idyllic destination. And to think this is only the beginning of travelling in this place!