After the less than two hour hike/stroll through the wonderful terraces fields of the Dragon’s Backbone Rice Terraces, I quickly made my way back to A Meng House. I quickly checked out and went back to the entrance, it took a while before the bus back to Longsheng arrived. I will be moving on to the town of Yangshuo 阳朔, but I will have to pass through Guilin 桂林.
There are two ways to get there, both of them through Guilin. First is to get off a Heping 合平 and wait for the Guilin bound buses. Second, the one I tried was to go all the way back to Longsheng and get a bus at the long distance bus station. I took the second option since it was more or less guaranteed although the former option would also have been guaranteed since the bus would pass by that spot I would find out later.
The trip from Longsheng to Guilin wasn’t very long, it only took us two hours to get there. I didn’t get to see much to Guilin but it seemed to be a charming city much like Chengdu is. I have heard a lot of stories on hour people would get pestered upon leaving the bus. I didn’t get any such reception, at the bus terminal, I got on the next bus to Yangshuo, which leaves every hour. I’m tired from all the traveling but I’m still thankful that it is convenient to travel in this part of China.
Yangshuo is just a short distance away from Guilin. You would know that you are approaching Yangshuo, when you start to see the limestone mountains that are on both sides of the road. I was an amazing sight to see such concentration of peculiarly shaped mountains.
At the bus terminal, there were groups of touts offering accomodations but I already have a place in mind. I just kept following the crowd and ignoring the touts that would come my way. It seems to work since they give up quite easily if you ignore them totally. Even if you just acknowledge their presence by apologizing for not entertaining them, they will hound you to the toilet.
My choice of accomodation here is the Yangshuo International Youth Hostel 阳朔国际青年旅舍. As the name implies this is also part of the Hostelling International group and has the same quality you’d expect from their group. At the ground floor is the reception and the travel center where they can easily arrange river tours for you. It would also seem that they can speak better English here, but I didn’t bother since I think it will be easier with Chinese. They also have a restaurant here serving western style food for people who are craving for something non-Chinese.
My room is on the second floor overlooking West Street 西街, as you might know, West Street is the street to be in Yangshuo with all the shops bars and restaurants there. This hostel definitely has a great location. As for my room, it really was nice and clean. The toilet, thankfully, was a western style toilet.
But as I would find out that night, being in a location like this has a price. The hostel is right next to a bar which plays live music way into the night. I can’t remember what time the music stopped but it was rather loud. Closing the windows did little to shut the noise out. But then since I was very tired I still slept like a log.
In conclusion, the Yangshuo International Youth Hostel has an awesome location right in the middle of all of the action in Yangshuo. However the noise from the nearby bars may put you off. If you do not mind the noise, this is certainly the place to be.
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