Yangshuo is a town just outside of Guilin, China and is famous for its karst mountains and also for being on the 20 yuan note.
Again i never really kept a diary for Yangshuo, so will just let the photo’s do the talking and will resume the blogging in the next post (Hanoi).
This was the view from my hotel roof, which also had a bar and was an awesome place to meet folk and chill out. The girl working on the bar, Fen, was a good laugh and probably the coolest chinese person i had met through China.
On my second day in Yangshuo i rented a bike and cycled out in to the country side. I passed alot of caves which i never bothered stopping to go inside as they were jammed full of tour groups and were slightly expensive. I stopped here though to take a photo of the butterfly and then cycled off before i got hassled by the touts.
These are bamboo rafts which you can pay the driver to sail you back into Yangshuo. I never bothered as i wanted to cycle further and had heard about a huge loop you can do that takes you through the mountains and back into the other side of Yangshuo.
I was getting bored of cycling on the roads, so just picked a random dirt track of the road and headed down into a farm. There was noone about so i just chilled for a bit and then headed back onto the road.
I then ended up cycling for about an hour or two before i realised the mountains had stopped and i was heading into flat farmland. I guessed since Yangshuo is famous for the mountains that i had taken a wrong turn. So i turned round and headed back! I was so tired and thirsty and there were no shops or anywhere to buy some water, so i had to make do with eating a pomela, which is like a massive orange.
I finally made it back to Yangshuo and headed straight for the rooftop bar to grab a beer. Think i probably cycled about 60km / 37miles that day.
I had this for lunch one day. Its a chinese hamburger and they make it by rolling out some dough, putting it in a stone oven until it inflates, cut a hole in it and stuff it full of veg, meat and spices! was amazing.
Me and i girl i met ( cant remember her name now ) decided to head to the meat market as we heard it was pretty eye opening. We had trouble finding it so asked about and were lead through a huge door. As soon as i walked in the smell hit me like a punch and the floor was just covered in blood and guts. At first it was just all the usual meats like pig, chicken and fish but tucked away up the back were cats and dogs. The cats in the photo are mostly dead but a few were still barely alive and could hardly move. We think they had just died due to neglect and just been left in the cage with no food. Horrible.
A duck skinned and cut open. All animals are alive here and butchered when you order one.
This was one of the dog counters. Just before i got here i heard a dog yelp and immediately walked over to see the guy holding the dog by the throat and chopping with a huge knife along the two sides of its face, he then grabbed the skin and just rolled it right of the body. We decided to just leave him to it and walk on. We went round the other stalls and were ready to leave but i wanted to head back and see again and sneak a photo. By the time we got back he had the dog on the ground and was ripping the intestines out. Blood was everywhere, deffo the most horrible thing ive seen.
One day i went canoeing and met an irish couple, Russel and Keely! We were took out to a town where the canoes were waiting on us, we all got in and were told to just start paddling down the river. At first it seemed we were just being left to make out way but after about 40 mins an escort showed up, made sure we were alright and then zoomed on ahead to wait for us to catch up. Was cool just being left to go at our own speed and not be rushed all the way.
After about an hour and a half, we were told to head onto the shore where we were met by a woman. We thought that was the end and were glad to have got the end and then we were told it was only half way and still had another hour and a half to go.
We ended up canoeing 14km’s and were knackered by the end. The river was flat calm and had no current to help you along so had no chance to just sit back and float along.
