My new Chinese friends stayed in a different hotel which was arranged by A Meng from Longsheng. Their hotel is just a short walk from Yangshuo International Youth Hostel. When we met up the next day, I went to their place and had a small breakfast of Guilin noodles. When they finally came down we all went together to the meeting point with A Meng’s friend which was just a short distance away.
Our contact here in Yangshuo is Qingting 蜻蜓 after the chat ID he normally uses. He is tall, slim and very friendly. He and A Meng are good friends and would regularly refer customers over to each other. He doesn’t speak English though, so I have to make do with my meager Chinese. I’m glad they understand me at all! It was also fortunate that my newfound friends’ Chinese didn’t have thick accent or I would have been truly lost. After exchanging some pleasantries, we proceed to get some bikes for the tour.
Wait a minute, bikes?! No one said anything about that. It turns out that we will be riding bikes all the way to the river then take the river raft tour from there. I must confess that I am a very poor bicycle rider and would oftentimes lose my balance. I find it more a challenge this time since it has been a year since I last rode one and second, this is China, the land of bicycles.
I managed to remember how to ride one and we were off, the first challenge quickly came in the form of the main highway to enter Yangshuo. I had to cross this with all the buses and cars zooming through. I had to wait extra long to make sure there are absolutely no cars or buses or bicycles passing by before I crossed the road. Made it!
The second challenge was less apparent, but I came to realize this would be tougher. There was a gazillion other Chinese bike riders and for someone who doesn’t balance very well, it is a nightmare to have bikes passing you every few seconds. This is survival of the fittest. I had to stop several times to let the groups of bikers through before resuming. I was really embarassed because my companions would need to stop each time I stop.
Lost in the commotion is the beauty of the place, I could hardly look a the surrounding area since I was too busy looking forward and maitaining my balance. Anyway, after about an hour of biking we made it to the docks where the bamboo rafts are. This is the Yulong River 玉龙河 a tributary of the Li River 漓江. The scenery here was really breathtaking.
We left out bikes with the raft guy and got two bamboo rafts each of which is no wider than a meter. It is a lazy cruise along the river with the boatman using a long bamboo pole to push the raft along. The river is quite shallow so it was easy for him to do so. Both sides of the river were lined with marvelous karst mountains and hills producing a very surreal scene. It was like a Chinese painting come to life.
It was too bad that the weather wasn’t that good when I was there since it was really gloomy. A lot of the mountains start to lose their definition and colors because of the clouds and the mist. I would have loved to get a photo of a sunny Yulong River scene but I think it will have to try again next time.
At one point of the cruise, there was a part where we need to get off the rafts and onto land. There was an elevated portion of the river and it was difficult for our rafts to cross. Our boatmen would push and pull our rafts across the obstacle, without us of course, and let us back onto the boat to resume our tour. The tour though didn’t reach the famous Yulong Bridge 玉龙桥 because of lack of time. More accurately, it was because I was too slow in getting to the raft docks. So because of this, we had to turn back. Actually, if I had been alone I would have made to the bridge but the ladies needed to catch a bus back to Guangzhou that afternoon. Yet another reason for me to come back here.
It was a truly inspiring ride, seeing all the wonderful karst scenery. It was as if God ran wild with His imagination and created this. A proper tour of this area would probably need a hike along the Yulong River. Walking along this river would have also been a wonderful experience. Just the terrain is flat and the path is easy, just make sure you have a torchlight when you hike here in case you don’t get back by nightfall.
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