A haphazard chronicle of my inevitable misadventures during a year in Vietnam and points east.

p.s. I'll be pitifully grateful if you send me email during my exile: TravelerKaty@hotmail.com

October 2002 November 2002 December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 February 2006 March 2006 May 2006

 
Yangshuo, Guanxi Province, China

A combination of sloth, social activity and immersion in a very long book have combined to lead me astray -- no writing whatsoever for four days. The layoff has not been due to anything lacking in Yangshuo or its environs. On the contrary, this place is a tired budget traveller's paradise, clearly catering to the outdoorsy backpacker crowd. The streets are lined with indoor/outdoor restaurants offering both local and western food, souvenir shops selling silks, embroidery, stone name stamps, paintings, and a million varieties of bone and brass knickknacks. A couple of enterprising Chinese girls have even set up a table on the street selling t-shirts with "I SURVIVED SARS 2003" in both English and Chinese.

Yangshuo is actually where I intended to start my trip to China, and in some ways it would have been good to do it that way -- a soft landing in a new country, and an opportunity to take a crash course in traveler Chinese from one of the many enthusiastic capitalists in town. However, it would certainly have given me a warped idea of how difficult it would be to travel here, and it is a gloriously relaxing place to end up before I head back to Hanoi to reniew my work visa.

Either way, it's a great place and it's given me the opportunity to speak English to native speakers again, as apparently this is where all the foreigners have ended up -- at least the ones who haven't fled due to SARS. The area around Yangshuo is gorgeous, very rural with huge tropical tree-covered karst formations poking out of the landscape like small free-standing mountains. In some ways it resembles Halong Bay, but with fields, villages, streams and rivers rather than seawater between each gigantic rock.

My first full day here I rented a bicycle. Now frankly, I'm not much of a bicycle rider. More of a walker, really. A slow walker. A slow, limping walker. Or maybe a slow, limping walker who frequently stops for ice cream bars. Despite that predilection, bicycle seemed like the best way to explore a little countryside on my own, and the bikes looked like they were of considerably higher quality than my bike rental experience in Vietnam. They had gears, even, though not ones that were too reliable. Plus they were shiny, and had pretty yellow paint.

I spent the morning cycling past lovely farms with giant stony backdrops, went to a local market, wandered through the alleyways of a nearby village, and returned with the firm intention of going back out in the afternoon. And I really did start off in the direction of my next destination, but after a kilometer or two I decided the pain just wasn't worth it. Bikes are great for getting your around fairly quickly and peacefully, but the bicycle seat is an instrument of torture to those who don't habitually ride them. So i returned to town and caught a bus. And yes, I know how lame this all sounds to the enthusiastic bikers among you, but I don't care. I think Satan may ride a bicycle, or at least he makes his minions do so.

The bus took me to Moon Hill, one of those mini-mountains with a big hole in the middle that looks like the moon in its various stages, depending on what angle it is viewed. Grueling hike up (see, I'm not totally opposed to strenuous exercise) but fabulous view. I walked back to town down some village paths, where several people offered to let me help with the rice harvest. I declined.

Apart from a river trip I took early yesterday morning (which left at 6:00 am because, according to the guy I booked it with, "It is illegal boat"), I've really accomplished practically nothing since my arrival. Shopping, reading, wandering, chatting, that's pretty much it. Oh, apart from the Chinese cooking course I took yesterday evening. Everything was good (pork w/ green chiles and tomato, eggplant with garlic and spring onions, tofu with tomatoes and garlic, stir fried mystery vegetable), but since I didn't write anything down it is doubtful that I'll be able to replicate any dish six months from now when I finally have a kitchen again.


Click here for a site showing pictures of Yangshuo.

Copyright 2003 Katy Warren
posted by Katy at 11:41 PM