Yangshuo

With the mountain-bike we discovered the surrounding region...

...and what we saw was an amazing landscape: rice- and cornfields surrounded by this very special shaped "Toblerone"-mountains.

On the fields you see farmers who cultivate their fields with water buffalos and very primitive agricultural implements.

Here still everyting is hand made. This means you can see people working by wading barefoot in the ankle- up to knee-deep water. Puuhh...this is a back-breaking work!!! I can imagine that it's not very healthy to stand in the water the whole day because you see the people in the fields in every weather -also when it's cold or rainy!
While in China economical metropolis like Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing were supported by the government in the last few decades the countryside and so the poor population was disregarded completly. So the agriculture is still very primitive and backward and the work is physically very exhausting!!!

Our bike trip brought us to the moon hill. Of course Peach and I had to climb it. Our tour guide Lubing didn't want to come with us because she comes here quite often with the tourists. Yes, I admit that we had a guide who knew the way. If you don't have a guide you can get lost here because all the mountains look similar and because of this you can't orientate very well.

We read that people got robbed by climbing this mountain and also one person was killed here! So Peach and I shortly searched for two bamboo sticks to put the attackers to flight....just in case, you never know...we thought it could be possible to be attacked here because this mountains is quite famous so there must be alot of tourist with expensive cameras coming up here
Haha...you should have seen us! Two "long nose" (like we Europeans are called here) armed with oversized bamboo bars!!! So every bandit would fear to come closer -> and in fact nobody attacked us...but instead we were prosecuted by an old Chinese lady who wanted to sell a set of ten postcards!
So the story of the highwayman was maybye a long time ago -or we really gave them a big shock and they didn't have the courage to attack us ;-)
However when we reached the top we could relax a little bit and could enjoy the view...

At the beginning we though it wasn't so nice that it was foggy and cloudy all the time...but thanks fog we took superb pictures (in different greyscales)...

Close to the moon hill we visited a cave the so-called Longmen Water Cave. With a small boat we went into the cave were we saw stalagmites and stalactites and other water formed formations.

Beside bike and cave tours you also can do alot of other things in Yangshuo. For example another day we were on the way with a boat. Unfortunatly it was raining but this is also a part of travelling...you can't choose the weather by yourself, there are a few other things which influence it...

Even though the weather wasn't always very good we spent a perfect time in Yangshuo. And this not just because it's a nice place but also because Peach could enjoy a few days off and had the posibility to travel like a backpacker far from the daily problems at work -and I could practice me swiss german again after a long time ;-)

"Nihao" from Yangshuo!!!

Peach and Andy

04.05.04, Yangshuo, China