Yangshuo

Yangshuo’s towering karsts are the archetypal landscape of dreams of China, and recognisable as the ethereal backdrop of many a flying kung fu scene. As our train approached we started to see these monolithic pods surreally reaching for the sky. It is a truly unique sight.

The town itself is not dissimilar to Dali, with its tourist shops and Western restaurants, but although surrounded by this stunning panorama, the thing to do when in Yangshuo is to get on a bike and delve into the compelling countryside.

So, if you’ve been keeping up with the blog then you’ll know I’m not the world’s greatest cyclist, especially in foreign countries and on busy roads. I was happy cruising serenely around the Palace of Versailles on a civilised lady-bike with a basket for my baguettes and a bell. But at the extreme opposite end of the spectrum, weaving in and out of traffic on the motorway between Siem Reap and Anchor Wat was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life.

Our first major junction with its swarms of buses, cars, motorbikes, pushbikes, pedestrians and poor bent-backed peasants pulling miscellaneous farm produce on wooden carts, all raring to go at once brought the horror flooding back.


Safely across and sweating from the hot sun and the fear, we found ourselves on a pleasant country lane where we stopped in the dappled shade of a tree near a decrepit stone bridge over an invitingly cool-looking stream. A lean-to shack where we bought water displayed an array of straw hats and we decided to deck ourselves out local-style and avoid sunstroke in the 37-degree heat.


We had a apparently fictional map but it did demark a road running along the Oolong (dragon) River which we followed, apart from the occasional detour up dirt tracks to signposted “viewpoints”, although everywhere you looked were amazing views. One of which trailed off into a narrow strip flanked by stinging nettles that scared me enough to wobble off and crash again, luckily into non-stingy foliage.



We had thought about finishing our ride at one of the bamboo raft docks and hiring one to take us and our bikes back to town, but we didn’t realise how slow these vessels float down the river and it would’ve been dark by the time we were back on the road, so we just turned around and cycled back.


Yangshuo at night is a riot of neon and rowdy Chinese tourists frequenting flashy KTV bars. Apparently, these bars are a very recent phenomenon in sleepy Yangshuo, catering to the nouveaux riche domestic tourist. According to the disgruntled locals, Westerners have been visiting this beautiful part of China for over 30 years, but now it has appeared on the Chinese tour-group radar it’s due for some inevitable unsightly changes.

On three separate occasions we were approached on the street by groups of extremely polite and curious students from all over China, with a list of carefully worded questions, probably set by their teachers for if they chanced upon any foreigners. These ranged from, “how do you like China / Yangshuo / the food?” and “is it very different from your country?” and one group of well-spoken, obviously wealthy teenagers from Beijing even asked us what we thought about the Olympic torch protests in France. This opened up the Tibet issue and we questioned their view. They were outraged and confused, as to them Tibet simply “belongs to China”. When we, cautiously, informed them that the zeitgeist in the West focuses more upon the violent “occupation” of Tibet by Chinese forces, followed by the exile of the their spiritual leader and suppression of their religious freedom, they were visibly shocked.

It does make you think. The Chinese are on the whole very patriotic, and we rationalised with these students that school history books in different countries tend to be slanted towards inspiring some degree of national pride. I’m sure there are disparities between the accounts of WWI and II in French and German textbooks, and I know I didn’t learn about any of the atrocious war crimes committed by the British at school.

Possibly our encounter encouraged these intelligent young people to consider another point of view. They certainly opened our eyes, having not really occurred to us before that, as far as China are concerned Tibet was always part of their country. But then, so was Hong Kong, and after 1997 it was returned to them, but retained its autonomy, and that is exactly what the Dalai Llama is asking for. During the Qing Dynasty, Manchurian China encompassed parts of Korea, Japan, Siberia and Mongolia - what if China suddenly decided they wanted any of those territories back? Anyway, that’s a whole other blog, and far beyond my scope of knowledge, so I wont rant blindly off on that tangent any more and will instead try and describe the wondrous scenery of Yangshuo!


The next day we availed ourselves of a local guide, a lovely lady who took us on a completely different, much more rural route through rice paddies, pomelo and orange groves and tobacco plantations, deep into the countryside.

At one point she stopped her bike and stooped down to rip out a bunch of leaves which, we were amazed to behold, bore peanuts at the end of their muddy roots! We had never known how they grew or how they tasted freshly plucked from the ground. She gave the bundle to Gill who happily attached them to his bike, although not without furtively looking around for an angry farmer.

The first stop was the obligatory Moon Hill, a limestone arch shaped formation that looks like a half-moon and one of the top sights in Yangshuo. We climbed for about half an hour with an unshakable guide/water-seller in the form of an old silver-cap-toothed woman who insisted on fanning me the whole way up.

We noticed on the way down that each group of tourists had the same kind of deal following them. We didn’t mind though, and she did show us a handy shortcut at one point and an awesome viewpoint at the top, so we bought some water on the way up and a can of coke to share when we reached the summit and sat under the arch itself, marvelling at its dripping stalactites.


After lunch and some more luscious scenery, we entered reached the docks where ensued some serious haggling with the bamboo boat boss, who looked like a portly triad Buddha. We managed to agree a reasonable price to float us down the Oolong, which I was supremely happy about - feeling too hot and tired to cycle all the way back.


The bamboo boat trip was very relaxing, apart from the odd exciting “rapid” that consisted of a kind of mini waterfall that drenched the boat, but not us. It was powered sort of like a Venetian gondola, with a young, friendly boatman punting us along the shallow waters with a long bamboo pole.


We were met at the destination dock, as promised, by our guide and we pedalled back to town. I had an interesting conversation with her, cycling side-by-side (Chinese-style) about her only son and her longing for another child, but the government’s one-child per family policy meant she could not without incurring a 30,000 yuan fine (£2,220). As farmers, her family couldn’t possibly afford to pay that much, so only the rich can have as many children as they desire.

Although my instant reaction was one of sympathy for her, after discussing China’s controversial policy later, Gill and I couldn’t help but see a potential advantage to some kind of population control system in many third, and indeed first world countries. After global warming, population growth is the next biggest threat to our planet. Another argument could be that, the typically uninhibited growth of the poorer classes (creating a strain on the welfare state), combined with more career-driven couples waiting until their 30s before having only one or two children will surely result in a national intellectual degeneration. Gosh – do I sound like a Nazi?! Any comments welcome!

We stayed in Yangshuo a day longer than planned, partly for me to recover from a cold, and partly to take advantage of the free WiFI to research and plan our next move. Visa regulation changes and border closures have been a major headache on this trip. First causing us to fly to Bangkok from Kathmandu to get our China visas. Now we’ve finally worked out we will have to make another expensive unscheduled stop in Hong Kong for our Russian ones, because the Russian embassies in Beijing and Shanghai perplexingly stopped issuing visas to foreigners. And because we only have single-entry China visas we will then have to apply for new ones to re-enter the mainland, which isn’t guaranteed so it’s a risky move. Oh for the carefree life on the road!

Dali

We were so glad we serendipitously ended up in this charming low-key heritage town. Our guesthouse, the Tibetan Lodge, was constructed in the traditional Chinese style with 3 tiers surrounding an open-air courtyard filled with stones for rainwater drainage, and even a modest fishpond water-feature for good feng shui.


Our room was miniature but cosy with nice little touches like embroidered wall hangings and a Tibetan motif curtain shielding the door, ensuring privacy whilst letting in the breeze. We had no fan, but Dali's elevation of 1900 metres made the summer feel like an English one so it wasn't really necessary.


We spent our time wandering around the old walled city, admiring the traditional architecture, along with hordes of Chinese tour groups. Whenever we stopped for a coffee (Yunnan coffee is lethally strong and with my low resistance to caffeine I felt like I was having a heart attack!) we were visited by a constant stream of wrinkled faced men and women selling various oddities like dragon's hair (furry sweets), weird-looking fruit and postcards (who uses them now, what with digital cameras and email?), who we felt very sorry for but just smiled and practiced our new phrase of the day - "bu yao, xie xien" (apologies to any Chinese speakers for the spelling!), which we hoped politely meant "no, thank you”.

The majority of people just ignored them completely. Although less effective and rather tiresome, as various other unidentifiable objects were proffered from bags and baskets, at least our method sent them away smiling instead of feeling invisible.


As recommended we set out the next day on bicycles into the countryside towards a beautiful blue lake we'd seen from the bus window, and heading for a traditional Bai village. Five minutes down the road, before we'd even left town I turned a corner at a crossroad and crashed into a parked car! I was so nervous and shaky, being unused to cycling and driving on the right (wrong) side of the road, that I just literally didn't see it being so concerned with traffic coming from all directions.

Feeling shaken I stopped and stared at the huge scrape I had made along the wing of the car and then at the woman sat behind the wheel. She got out and there ensued mass confusion with her ranting in Chinese and I stammering in English that I was sorry but didn't understand. In the end we offered her 50 yuan (about 3 pounds 50) and she seemed happy and actually expressed concern over my scraped leg. I wobbled off feeling extremely lucky that the car had not been moving and that she was so lenient. If we had been in India I probably would’ve been lynched!


We suddenly found ourselves on a scary motorway with buses and lorries thundering past with no lake in sight, although gorgeous rice-paddy farming scenery everywhere. After a while we decided to attempt to depart the direct road and find our way through the country lanes, but got completely lost and almost shaken to death by the bumpy terrain on our rickety rental bikes. Back on the road we travelled another few excruciating km before my nerves gave out after imagining anti-Westerner hit and run drivers and drunken over-takers and we conceded defeat and turned back.


That evening we got chatting to an American ex-pat who had just been fired from Morgan Stanley in Beijing for losing a few billion dollars and so was on vacation for the rest of the year. He took us to a local restaurant and ordered for us (in Chinese) a veritable feast for dinner. He had studied Chinese history and been living in China for 20 years so was really interesting to talk to about the local culture and politics, and had some interesting views on Mao Tse-Tung and local insights into the communism, capitalism and Tibet issues.


Afterwards we went to Bad Monkey, a really cool bar owed by two English guys (one who turned out to have an ex-girlfriend from my school and knew a lot of my old friends - small world!).


We were lucky enough to catch a wicked live band made up of 3 Canadian guitarists, a Chinese drummer and female Chinese singer. They had been touring China with their brilliantly original country-rocking sound that kind of reminded me of the band in the Coen brothers' film, Oh Brother Where Art Thou?


We stayed there until about 2am drinking Tsingtao and having a brilliant time meeting locals and other travellers, and wishing we didn't have a bus and train booked for the next day.


The following morning was a struggle as we packed and staggered, hungover to the bus, feeling very sorry for ourselves and contemplating just staying a few more days. But, the budget could not cope with throwing away 50 quid so we reluctantly boarded the bus.

Kunming

Our first experience of China was the 24hr sleeper bus from Luang Prabang to Kunming, which was pure luxury compared to its Indian cousin - with comfy bunks, air-con, duvets, pillows, and flat screens showing a continuous stream of kung fu movies (mostly without English subtitles, but the plots were fairly obvious!).
So, we started the journey early in the morning and spent the whole day being bumped along quite merrily with stunning views of northern Laos whizzing past in a green blur.


The border crossing was a bit of a sketch, as they generally are, but with more rigorous checks of our passports, more questions and a thorough search of our backpacks. Not sure what they were looking for, but our “imperialist propaganda” (the Lonely Planet and Jung Chan’s biography of Mao) were not confiscated, as we had feared. Oddly, our hand baggage was not searched at all.


We were excited to finally be in China, after all the visa worries and rumours of border closures, and then relaxed as the sun set on the smooth new road into the promised land.
Our first stop was the border town of MengLa, where half the passengers disembarked – including a teacher from Guangzhou who had been our only link to the completely Chinese world of the bus on many occasions by translating for us (the only Western tourists) what the hell was going on.


With an hour to kill we managed to find a local restaurant with a “point and cook” policy that thankfully hurdled the language barrier. After a most delicious meal the cheerful matriarch plonked herself down at our table and launched into a rapid monologue in Chinese. Baffled, we smiled and shrugged apologetically as a weak attempt to indicate we did not understand. She laughed and continued to chat away, including some illustrative hand gestures until her curious and smiling young staff surrounded us and between them managed to translate the odd word here and there. From somewhere an English-Chinese phrasebook was produced and she would point out greetings like “it is very nice to meet you” for us to pronounce for her, and then read us out the mandarin equivalent. She was such a brilliant, lively lady, and they were all so smiley and enthusiastic to try and communicate with us, we were greatly reassured and encouraged by our first encounter with Chinese people.


Back on the bus we settled in for the night and at around midnight we were just drifting off to sleep when we pulled over at an army check post. Most of the bus were asleep and were woken by harsh fluorescent light and a troupe of armed soldiers in full green camouflage uniform, (including communist era helmets) boarding the bus, demanding their travel documents / ID.
We weren’t sure if it had anything to do with the fact that we were the only foreigners, but this time they searched everyone’s luggage except ours. An amusing incident involved the men debating how to handle two plastic carrier bags full of very unhappily squawking ducks, until one unfortunate soldier pulled on a pair of surgical gloves and did his best to check the ducks were not sitting on any contraband.


One tip for anyone planning to take a Chinese sleeper bus (particularly for non-smokers) - don’t get a bunk near the front as Chinese drivers chain-smoke the entire time.


We arrived at the mental Kunming bus station in a post-valium haze and were immediately surrounded by touts shouting at us in Chinese. We somehow extradited ourselves and were happy to pay twice the recommended price for a taxi to the Camellia Hotel where we checked into a surprisingly luxurious room for a budget hotel.


Kunming is known as the “City of Eternal Spring” because of its reliably temperate climate, and we did find it pleasant, but that could possibly be its only redeeming feature. With all the trains to our next intended destination of Guilin (for Yangshuo) booked up for the next two days we resolved to kill the time in Dali, 5 hours away.

Luang Prabang

Having visited and fallen in love with this gorgeous French-colonial Mekong riverside town 2 years before, we were happy that it coincided with our route overland from Bangkok to China and used the opportunity to squeeze in some shopping in the brilliant ethnic nightmarket and a lot more research than we had intended.

The last time were here was in April, during PiMai (Buddhist New Year), when the town was packed with revellers drunkenly throwing water and anything else they had to hand at each other – utter, brilliant chaos.


This time we had the chance to experience its sleepy backwater charms, but admittedly didn’t get the chance to do much sightseeing as the whole Russian visa issue unravelled like a daunting line of red tape stretched out endlessly in front of us.


The street food in Luang Prabang is some of the best in Asia, with local spicy sausage, fresh spring rolls, baguettes, a myriad of fruit and lethally strong Laos coffee on every corner.


We spent most mornings sheltering from the frequent rain under the scant awning of a basic coffeeshop which served the most pulse-racing thick dark coffee to fuel us for our day in the nearest wifi café, frustratingly wading through reports of visa experiences from other travellers and phoning embassies in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Mongolia.


We met an American ex-pat who had just moved to the town from a tiny village up north to school his half-Laos children. He was in his forties and really active in environmental and social issues in the area, so we found it interesting to chat to him about the literacy outreach foundation he’d founded.


Once we’d felt as sure as we could be of our chances of getting Russian visas in China we booked our next journey into China at last, a 24hr Chinese sleeper bus direct to Kunming.

Bangkok & Ko Phangan

We landed in Bangkok's spanking new airport, with its steel and concrete colossal industrial architecture and miles of travelators making a stark disparity from our first landing there 2 and a half years ago. It's almost as slick as Changi now. Out into the familiar searing midnight heat and straight into a waiting taxi we were cruising towards Phra Athit and feeling like we'd come home. This is where it had all begun - our Asian life.


Wandering down Soi Rambutri and Khao San Rd, which seemed even more frenetic, with its hordes of even younger wide-eyed "travellers", we remembered why we loved this crazy city.


This time we made the effort to get out of touristville a bit more and got about by skytrain, riverboat and bus, shopped in MBK and Chatuchuk, ate in Sukhumvit, explored Chinatown, and even visited some temples!


We definitely felt more comfortable and confidently Asianified this time around, after living in Singapore and travelling SE Asia - from Vietnam to Indonesia and everywhere in between. We knew how to spot a clean food stall, good fake, bad mangosteen or dodgy tout.


We couldn't resist the odd tuk-tuk ride though - there's nothing as exhilarating as roaring at breakneck speed through the streets of Bangkok, weaving through the notorious traffic with the hot wind in your hair.


Besides all that fun, we were in Bangkok for one (considerably less fun) purpose - to get China visas, so off to the embassy we went, armed with all the ridiculously meticulous planning like pre-booked hotels for the whole time there (posh hotels in HK, Shanghai & Beijing as they have the easiest online booking and penalty-free cancellation policies), bank statements and air ticket from Beijing to Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia (faked by a travel agency in Beijing). The sign by the door said we needed "return flights" but we hoped this would do. There was also a sign just inside the office that read something like: "the consulate does not process visa applications from agents, and does not accept responsibility for any loss or fraud". Underneath which was a desk with a stack of application forms and an official-looking agent who checked all our documents, charged us an exorbitant fee and told us to come back in 3 days. We walked out thinking that was rather easy, and then something triggered about the sign I had read and how the price he charged was almost double that of the published rates (we'd at first assumed this was because of the new regulations), so we went back in. We confronted him and it turned out he was indeed a dodgy agent who would have probably just pocketed the cash. There was a security guard standing a few feet away from where this scam was taking place, right underneath the sign about no agents! Only in Thailand. How amateur of us!


So, we filled in the forms ourselves just in time for our queue number to pop up and presented all our documents to the nice lady behind the counter. She asked to see our entry ticket to which we replied we were travelling overland. How ridiculous - of course we are entering the country, why else would we be applying for visas?! But, rules are rules and so off we went to try and sort something out.


The next couple of days were rather stressful trying to find a way of avoiding booking flights and losing the money, and I won't go into the details but we had almost given up all hope of getting into China when we found a new post on the god-sent lonelyplanet thorntree forum from a couple in the exact same predicament who had found an agency in Bangkok, right round the corner from our guesthouse, who organised the whole thing for them! So, we went there and the lovely lady, who had a friend who worked at the embassy, charged us the regular visa fee and an extra 200 baht each (nothing) to fake our flights and hotels.
With indescribable relief and a few days to kill before we could collect our visas we popped off to Ko Phangan for some much needed beach time.


The ferry ride to the island felt like heaven as we had made this journey many times before and had such brilliant memories of the place. The island had inevitably succumbed to rampant development over the last two years so we decided to stay on the quiet secluded Haad Tien, only accessible boat, and probably the only beach left that retained some of the old skool KPN hippy vibe.


We spent a very relaxing few days sunning it up and meeting cool people. I even managed to slot in a yoga class. One guy we met, Sage, an Australian originally from Lebanon lived in a cave in the jungle (with its own cobra!) and shinned up coconut trees like a true wild bushman. Most of the other people on the beach were hippy yoga types - pretentious at first but mostly nice once we got to know them.


We ended up catching the boat and night train back to Bangkok with an English Malaysian-born didgeridoo player and his 8-year-old daughter from Kuala Lumpur that we’d already met on the beach and talked about Malaysian politics. He was obviously an old pro, but this was his first time travelling with his kid and we could tell he was a bit nervous about how she would cope with life on the road. Certainly not a strict father, she seemed quite spoiled and we wondered how they would get on India – his intended next stop after Bangkok.


Sad to leave the island (probably for the last time) but elated to collect our China visas we set about with some last minute shopping and posting (Gill even had a suit made!), then took a night bus to Vientiane in Laos, where we intended to transfer immediately to another to Luang Prabang.