McDonalds, McDonalds, KFC and the Pizza Hut

5am start, scenic bus trip, impressive-looking border, easy border crossing and I was back in the Western World. Well, actually, I was in China, but the border crossing was a cross into a land that was much more developed than the South East Asian countries I was coming from. For starters, the roads! Viet Nam's national highway is narrow and chaotic, but the first roads we experienced in China, from the border city of Pingxiang to the Guangxi province capital Nanning were a world apart. They were six-lane dual carriageways that were almost completely empty and had frequent tolls (maybe why they were empty). Not only did our bus have seatbelts, but there were signs on the side of the road telling you to fasten them. All the motorbike riders were wearing helmuts and in Nanning they had a seperate lane all to themselves. Another shock in Nanning was the modernity of the city. And there were several McDonalds, KFCs and Pizza Huts. Luckily though, most of the chain food shops were limited to the main drag. As soon as you ventured onto side streets you found market-style restaurant stalls where you could pick your very own fresh fish, prawns, chicken, duck, sparrows or frogs, to be killed and cooked for you right then and there.

The scenery from the north of Viet Nam, near the border, right through to our first real destination in China, Yangshou, has been spectacular limestone karst country. This scenic countryside is one of the main attractions of Yangshou.
The small city of Yangshou is great, karasts jut out, providing the perfect backdrop for the main tourist street, which is a pedestrian-only affair, packed with souveneer shops, cafes, restaurants and bars. Eating dinner in market stalls, watching lightning sillouhette the karasts, is pretty magic. But it's what lies outside the city that is the real attraction.

On our first day in Yangshou, we went on a Li River cruise (read, putter on a noisy boat). The rain, which had been falling since we arrived in China, was kind enough to stop for a short while and the mountains though the fog were beautiful... even in the rain they were amazing (see first pic). We also saw the scene that is on the China 20 yuan bill - woo hoo.
The cruise departed from a town called Xingping. We wandered around the town and surrounding countryside and soaked it all up - see photo of lady with umbrella dangling the evening's dinner - chicken, see also the pic of the back wall of the restaurant where we had lunch - quite a lot of people seem to still rever Mao. We also added to our list of wierd food stuff, outside a restaurant we saw what some Chinese tourists told us were bamboo mice, they were grey, cylindrical (I think that's a word) balls of fluff about 20cm long with big, buck teeth and looked like a cross between a guinea pig and a squirrell. One was really active and kept gnawing at the cage and hanging off the roof with its teeth, the same place also had live snake on the menu. Gotta love places where the menu's not on paper, but in cages outside. On that note, we have also added dried rats to our list (this is not an eating list - merely observing!!)

Probably the best way to see the countryside around Yangshou is on bicycle. The land around the karasts is pretty flat and you can get a pretty good mountain bike for about $1.50 per day. Riding bikes is just generally a good way to soak up the scenery and fresh air (or not - see pick of mum and a truck that was struggling with a small hill). So, on our second day, we hired bikes to ride to a place called the Moon Water Cave. To get into the cave, we went on a small wooden boat through a narrow underground stream. After a short while, it was out of the boat and walking, all of this was nice enough, but a bit la-di-da... then, we got to the MUD BATH. It was an area filled with knee deep, silky smooth mud that you could, well, bath in. There was also a man-made mud slide. After the mud, we exited the cave by walking up along an underground creek, climbing up small waterfalls. Then outside the cave there was beautiful rice paddy and karast scenery (see pic following the mud one). After washing (most of) the mud off in a waterfall, we cycled to a place called Moon Hill, it is a hill with a semicircle hole in it and a great view from the top (the next pic is looking out across the karasts, through the moon shaped hole).

Our final day in Yangshou (I could easliy have spent several more) was also spent cycling around, visiting a small town and then cycling along the Yulong River. The scenery along the Yulong (all the other pics), was, I thought, the best we saw, though this might have something to do with the fact that despite more wet weather predictions, it didn't rain, so we got a clear view of the landscape. For lunch we stopped at a place where the owners didn't speak any English. As has happened to me several times before, they took us into the kitchen so we could point out the ingredients we would like in our meal. We pointed to about five items, eggplant, zucchini etc, and I tried to explain that we only wanted one dish between us (servings in China are huge). However, they brought us out five whole dishes, each made with one of the ingredients we had ordered. I wasn't impressed, seeing it as them trying to make more money off us, as we obviously couldn't eat what they gave us (we barely managed two). But, at least it tasted good. The local specialty in Yangshou is beer fish - fish cooked in beer and vegies. I'd like to be able to say what it tasted like, but I can't. We were going to have it tonight, but we're still too full from lunch.