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A Day in Yangshuo
It's hot, humid, tropical. Something about this kind of weather makes me feel as if I am on a vacation. And we have set a pace that suggests that we are. Not to mention, we are in one of China's touristy towns, where everyone in town is on vacation. It's not a town of locals, except those working the tourism industry. The scenery is amazing, with limestone pinnacles like a scene from Dr. Seuss' imagination.
Everything sweats in the heat, even hot beverages. A subtle smell of mildew hangs in the air throughout town... the whole place cries out against the heat and humidity. Each day, the skies open up and pour water -- it's the rainy season in China. But many enjoy the daily shower, although its quenching nature disappears as quickly as the rains come on. Afterwards, the temperature seems to soar and the humidity becomes even more devastating than before.
Yangshuo, being the tourist attraction it is, is full of souvenir stalls (the same items sold as throughout the rest of China), and restaurants serving Western style fare. There is really nothing much to do in Yangshuo, the town itself... but the surrounding countryside and villages make up for it.
Yesterday we rented bikes and rode an hour into the scenic flatland surrounding town. Beyond the green rice paddies and farms, giant connicle-shaped mountains of limestone jut into the sky. It's the kind of landscape that makes you stop and stare and fall into a certain kind of reverie reserved for vacations far from home. Our destination was the Moon Hill village, named for the Moon Hill mountain, which has an arch, shaped like a crescent moon, overlooking a large swath of mountains and land below. In the village, there is a cave and we were talked into visiting it by a local woman who secured tickets for us at half price. Not having a predilection for spelunking, a product of claustrophobia, it was not necessarily the way I wanted to spend the rest of my afternoon... but at half price, it was hard to resist and we had nothing better to do... so into the cave we went.
Anna, the impromptu tour guide who got us the half price ticket, guaranteed me there would be no crawling, tight spaces, and all the other horrors awaiting a claustrophobe in a cave. But I should have known better -- some times English is not understood completely and you are likely to get the answer you want to hear because there is no better way for them to answer you. There is not a command of language to do so.
The cave was mercifully lit with colored lights, which not only gave it a certain sort of dance club atmosphere, but it also made it a little less 'cave like'. At first we had to duck through some spaces with low ceilings. It's a good thing we were given helmets to wear. I hit my head on every single overhang. There were places we had to crawl but because of the pools of water on the ground, we did more of a squatted duck walk -- watching Benjamin do this was enough to make me forget the imminent panic attack I was worried about. We waded through knee-deep water and hauled ourselves over slippery cave walls with ropes. All while trying to stay relatively dry and mud-free (we only have a certain, limited number of clothes and getting something dirty can be disastrous depending on how close it is to laundry day).
I was glad to see the light of day again, when we left the cave. I appreciated the open sky and uncomfortable seat of my bike all the more. We rode home in the downpour of rain without a care -- why bother worrying about getting wet when there is no place we need to be, no schedule to keep. By the time we got back to Yangshuo, the sun was shining again. The rain on hold until the following day.
Everything sweats in the heat, even hot beverages. A subtle smell of mildew hangs in the air throughout town... the whole place cries out against the heat and humidity. Each day, the skies open up and pour water -- it's the rainy season in China. But many enjoy the daily shower, although its quenching nature disappears as quickly as the rains come on. Afterwards, the temperature seems to soar and the humidity becomes even more devastating than before.
Yangshuo, being the tourist attraction it is, is full of souvenir stalls (the same items sold as throughout the rest of China), and restaurants serving Western style fare. There is really nothing much to do in Yangshuo, the town itself... but the surrounding countryside and villages make up for it.
Yesterday we rented bikes and rode an hour into the scenic flatland surrounding town. Beyond the green rice paddies and farms, giant connicle-shaped mountains of limestone jut into the sky. It's the kind of landscape that makes you stop and stare and fall into a certain kind of reverie reserved for vacations far from home. Our destination was the Moon Hill village, named for the Moon Hill mountain, which has an arch, shaped like a crescent moon, overlooking a large swath of mountains and land below. In the village, there is a cave and we were talked into visiting it by a local woman who secured tickets for us at half price. Not having a predilection for spelunking, a product of claustrophobia, it was not necessarily the way I wanted to spend the rest of my afternoon... but at half price, it was hard to resist and we had nothing better to do... so into the cave we went.
Anna, the impromptu tour guide who got us the half price ticket, guaranteed me there would be no crawling, tight spaces, and all the other horrors awaiting a claustrophobe in a cave. But I should have known better -- some times English is not understood completely and you are likely to get the answer you want to hear because there is no better way for them to answer you. There is not a command of language to do so.
The cave was mercifully lit with colored lights, which not only gave it a certain sort of dance club atmosphere, but it also made it a little less 'cave like'. At first we had to duck through some spaces with low ceilings. It's a good thing we were given helmets to wear. I hit my head on every single overhang. There were places we had to crawl but because of the pools of water on the ground, we did more of a squatted duck walk -- watching Benjamin do this was enough to make me forget the imminent panic attack I was worried about. We waded through knee-deep water and hauled ourselves over slippery cave walls with ropes. All while trying to stay relatively dry and mud-free (we only have a certain, limited number of clothes and getting something dirty can be disastrous depending on how close it is to laundry day).
I was glad to see the light of day again, when we left the cave. I appreciated the open sky and uncomfortable seat of my bike all the more. We rode home in the downpour of rain without a care -- why bother worrying about getting wet when there is no place we need to be, no schedule to keep. By the time we got back to Yangshuo, the sun was shining again. The rain on hold until the following day.
posted by Cheryn at 3:03 PM
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