Fran & Rich's Big Happy Trip: Going with the flow in Yangshuo

In the last instalment we were eagerly awaiting our boat trip up the Yangtze River through the spectacular Three Gorges. Our journey began with a 2 hour drive (after a 2 hour wait for the bus and the taxi worryingly dropping us off in the wrong place!) to the upper dock - the one in Yichang we were meant to depart from wasn’t in use because there was too much water or something (sounds like a ‘leaves on the line’ excuse to me)! We got there just as night fell, passing by the impressively enormous Hydro-electric dam that redefined the landscape of the Three Gorges in the ‘80’s when it was built. The port itself was a step back in time and the boat a further regression, both in terms of technology and hygiene! We all settled into our small and far-from-perfectly formed cabins and attempted to drown out the noise of the thumping diesel engines and questionable whiff of the en-suite to grab some much-needed shuteye! Not sure whether the couple of chugs of horrendous rice wine (70p for half a litre of 52% volume paint stripper) did us any favours but we eventually drifted off as the boat meandered up the river.

The Yangtze from a minibus!

Old ticket office at the port

Retro funicular railway down to the boat (though this was 20p each so we obviously walked the 100 steps instead!)

The Bog of Eternal Stench

As always, our fellow Chinese passengers on the boat were up ridiculously early (anything before 6am should be against the law) and proceeded to ensure that we Westerners joined them in the land of the living with the usual wakeup call of horrendously clearing their throats at top volume and bounding around the boat like schoolkids after one too many packets of Skittles! Once we eventually came to, we had brekkie and made it up to the top deck to see the pretty awesome scenery that surrounded us. Unfortunately the weather for the whole boat trip was pretty dreary so we had to don our particularly snazzy Tesco Value ponchos (no really - £1.50 I think they were – thanks Mum!) to view the scenery. It was pretty spectacular as you can see from the photos – one of the gorges stars on the Chinese 10 Yuan note!

A huge bridge

Another sizeable bridge

Misty morning in the Gorge

Gorge-ous ripples (had to get that terrible gag in there somewhere!)

Later that morning we stopped and hopped off onto another smaller boat to head up a tributary river. We then stopped again and got onto an even smaller ‘pea-boat’ – so called because it was used to transport peas! These boats were propelled by 4 or 5 tribesmen standing and rowing facing forwards, much like a Venetian gondola. Our British/Aussie group of 16 sat on benches in the middle of the boat as the 50+ year old boatmen paddled like crazy to propel us past the other 5 tour group boats who were doing the same! It was a pretty artificial touristy experience but the scenery was spectacular and the banter of cheering our boatmen on and hurling ‘Who are yer?’ and ‘Is that all you’ve got?’ jibes at the other boats was priceless banter – like being back in a boat at Henley Rowing Club!

Pea boats heading downriver

Lee from Southampton opening up a barrage of abuse on some unsuspecting Chinese tourists in a rival pea boat!

A well and truly defeated crew!

…gently down the stream

Our guide singing some questionable ‘traditional’ songs available for purchase on DVD, using every musician’s favoured instrument – the megaphone!

Once we had rejoined the mother-ship, we continued up the Yangtze from one gorge to the next, viewing a multitude of tree-covered rocky outcrops with names like ‘President Mao’s Hill’ (a series of peaks that look like a fat chap lying down), ‘Eagle Head Mountain’ (looks like an Eagle’s Head) and numerous other tenuously-named geographical features! As the weather was still miserable, we were soon gorged-out and longing to leave our slightly pongy cabins behind and continue to the next destination – the rural, mountainous idyll of Yangshuo.

Among China’s clouded hills

High fashion on the river

‘Is that a God Dam? Uh hu hu hu!’ – Beavis from Beavis & Butthead Do America

After finally getting off the HMS Bad Odour, we had a two-hour minibus journey, followed by a five hour minibus journey, followed by an overnight train, followed by an hour and a half minibus journey to get us to Yangshuo – this travelling overland malarkey is pretty exhausting! Luckily however the destination more than made up for the marathon journey. Upon opening our weary eyes as we passed through a toll gate on the outskirts of the town, we were wowed by the dramatic hilly landscape and patchwork quilt of paddy fields, and this charming rural paradise continued as we descended into the town itself. We’d arrived first thing in the morning so we tucked into brekkie whilst waiting for our rooms and witnessed a colossal rain storm as we ate – awesome! I went for a much needed run in said rainstorm – definitely a good-to-be-alive moment!

Completely knackered at Gui Lin station

View from the hostel (note huge mountain in background!)

Soggy courtyard

Proper rain storm!

After the rain had abated, we went for the customary ‘orientation walk’ to check out the main bits of town. Though it had taken a fairly big hit from the tourism bat (see below for the most picturesque Maccy D’s in the world!) it still maintained a peaceful, endearing and laid-back vibe (even despite the ubiquitous horrendously chaotic traffic). In the evening we had the option of watching a local fisherman fish with cormorants – you may have seen the HSBC advert on telly with the old chap fishing with a bird catching way more fish than the Westerner with all the gear. Again this was quite touristy but good fun, especially when we found out that the chap we were watching fish was the actual chap out of the HSBC advert! You can tell from my face in the picture below that I enjoyed the moment! The chap was 78 years old and still going strong – the Chinese are impressively active into their latter years!

Reasonable view over the river!

Lovely McView

The main man in action

No fish but plenty of reeds!

Rich and the HSBC man! (No he’s not picking his nose)

The following day we donned our helmets with our group and cycled into the hills. The scenery was breathtaking and it was most enjoyable being out in the fresh air, away from the hustle and bustle of the Chinese supercities. We cycled to Moon Hill (you guessed it – a hill with a rock formation that looks like the moon) and climbed it, trying to shake off the gaggle of local women who followed our every step, trying to sell us soft drinks at vastly inflated prices. We made it to the top and back down again without buying anything despite their impressive persistence, however we gave our lady a couple of yuan for her efforts – all of the ladies must have been at least 70 and made the trip up and down the hill numerous times a day – respect!!!

Nice helmets!

Ploughing the paddy fields

Through the lush hills

Rich’s massive head and a few more hills

Excellent regatta potential on this bit of water!

Moon Hill from the bottom

Moon Hill from the top!

We went out for a few beers in the evening with the group, randomly bumping into Tommy and Kelly again from our Russian train – small country! They’re planning to go to Vietnam next so we said we’d meet up again there – didn’t bother making a date as we’ll probably bump into them anyway!

Before we left Yangshuo, we did a Chinese cooking course which was good fun! The secret of making a good Chinese dish is to have (a) good ingredients in the first place and (b) a gas hob that goes from 0 to hotter than the sun in a split second! When we turned the stoves to max it was like being back at school playing with the Bunsen burner for the first time – scary stuff! We cooked vegetable dumplings, green beans with chilli and pork and kung pao chicken – we both succeeded and ate like kings! Definitely inspired to cook some chinese back home in the old wok, though it might not be the same with a Tesco Value stir fry kit!