Yangshuo Favorites

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Favorite thing: Though carefully carried from beautiful urban development to beautiful rural display, we could have a side view of real rural life.

It looks as hard as expected. China grows at two different speeds, and there are millions far behind the splendours of the progressive big cities.

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Favorite thing: I didn't find out if we were in a hotel by a public lake, or if the lake was part of the hotel. Anyway, the integration was perfect, composing one of the prettiest spots of the city.

Lake, I said! But I saw the raft used at night with cormorants, preparing near the hotel. Now I think that it is really a natural or artificial bay in the river. Beautiful, anyway!

Favorite thing: it is too far by bike from Mountain Retreat to Xingping, you should go there by scooter, you can see a lot of rice paddies on the way to Xingping, you can rent scooter by hotel. It is hard to take scooter on a boat back from Xingping to Yangshuo, you should rent a small boat from Xingping back to Yangshuo. There are not many public toilets on the way.

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Favorite thing: So what is a Karst landscape? Well, it's all due to limestone that has been dramatically eroded. The warm wet climate in the southwest of China speeds up the weathering of limestone by acid rainwater and chemicals in rotting plants. Surface streams lose water to cave systems developing in the limestone. Surface drainage is diverted down sink holes to below the water table. Peaks then start to develop from the land left after erosion by the streams. The cave system gets larger as fast-moving subsurface streams bore through the limestone and the water table drops. Much of the limestone has eroded past the caves down to a layer of shale whilst the limestone peaks remain, such as the one's found in the Guilin area.

There are two types of Karst features: Fenglin karst is characterised by peaks that rise near vertically, like trees, 100 to 250 feet (30 to 80m) above the surrounding flat ground. The other type is known as Fengcong karst. Their peaks are more cone-shaped and one hill meets the next across a depression or doline and are clustered together. If you travel down the Li River on a cruise, it starts with Fenglin karst before gradually giving way to the dense Fengcong as you reach Yangshuo.

Favorite thing: Public restrooms are available, though they can be a bit hard to find. Look for signs (there's one near Minne Mao's and one closer to the river, near a decorated bridge.). They aren't always the cleanest, but when you gotta go...

Favorite thing: Peaceful outside the main tourist part of town, Yangshuo is a growing place that may soon not resemble the quiet, small-town village it strives to be, falling, of course, to the glowing commercialism of tourist dollars. Yet, away from the city, toward smaller villages, it still is local, still serene, beautiful and rural.

Fondest memory: Walking the dirt roads outside of town, easily accessible and quiet. When you've lived here a while, the glitz of the cities wears off (I wasn't ever really drawn to them) and places of real quiet become increasingly important.

Favorite thing: You might think that just because the town is old, the streets will be dirty and filled with rubbish dump. Well, you will be surprised to see that Fuli, the Ancient Town and XingPing's roads which are are made of gravel, are so clean and no rubbish is seen thrown on the roads. Sweepers are seen diligently sweeping off bits of leaves from the road. This will put some of the well developed countries to shame!

Favorite thing: You will have to go through Dragon Back Hill Tunnel if you are travelling by road to Fuli town, Xinping town or to Guangzhou. This tunnel is cut through the hill and it's quite long. The tunnel is dimly lit by yellow lights. We went through this tunnel when we made our way to Fuli and also Xingping

Note of caution : When bus is going through this tunnel, beware of pickpockets on board. During one of the trips, we noticed that there was one pickpocket trying to slit open a bag of one of the passengers. There are usually more than 1person during this operandi modus.