Tuesday, July 17, 2018
I woke up early this morning and got out of bed right away. I was keen to see outside and potentially catch the sunrise. Our room (which is actually a family suite containing a large main room with a king bed, a smaller room with bunks for the kids, and the bathroom) faces onto the river and the view was spectacular, though the sun was rising to our backs.
I read for a while, and eventually we woke the kids up. We were planning to take a bamboo rafting trip on the river, and wanted to beat the rush. Rafting opened at 8 am and the hotel staff had told us that the starting point was a ten minute walk upriver along a waterfront path.
We ate breakfast at a table down by the river, during which time we saw the first couple of rafts of the day go by. By the time we finished eating and walked upriver, it was probably 8:45 am. Rafts were starting to set off regularly, but it was not at all crowded yet.
We rented two rafts, and our guides led us down to the water where we boarded.
I had elected to bring my good camera along for the trip, taking the chance that our raft would not flip and that I (and it) would stay dry. Most rafters we saw throughout the day had their phones out, so this seemed to be a fairly safe bet.
The half hour we spent on the river was delightful and well worth the 100 yuan/$20 CDN per person. The mountains were gorgeous, the rafting was fun, and the whole thing was just so bucolic. We could see a few rafts ahead of us on the water, but at no time did it feel like we were part of a flotilla of rafters. We floated by the Yangshuo Mountain Retreat around the halfway mark and continued on. There are 3 or 4 small drops over a little dam that make for some good fun and a splash, but overall it is a very tame float trip.
After half an hour, we came to a bridge by the Big Banyan Tree. This was the take-out spot unless you paid more to continue further on downriver. The guide pulled us over to the opposite bank and we disembarked. Then he swung back to the original bank where the rafts were being loaded into trucks and driven back to the starting point.
Over the course of the day as the rafting got busier, we would see the rafts come down the river toward our resort in waves. We hypothesized that there would be lineups for the rafts and that as truckloads of rafts were returned to the starting point, rafters would set of off together in groups.
After our rafting trip, we walked back to our hotel along the road. It was not yet 11 am, but the temperature was soaring. It hit 99F today, and was quite humid. Back in our room, we cooled off in the strong, icy air conditioning for a bit, before the boys donned swimsuits and walked a ways back upriver to drop into the river on inner tubes. I went with them to see them off, and then Mallory and I both watched them float into our resort area, where there is a dock they could use to get out.
When we were looking for places to stay in Yangshuo, the first few hotels we considered were not on the river. How lucky we were to eventually choose a hotel that was waterfront. Having access to the water added immensely to our enjoyment of the area.
The Li River is the larger, more popular river in the area, and the Yulong River where we were situated is a smaller tributary of it. However, the Yulong is reportedly much cleaner than the Li, something to keep in mind if you plan to swim.
We played some badminton using the resort net and the paddles and birdie we’d bought in the park in Beijing. Soon enough we were hungry, and headed into the restaurant around 12:30 pm for lunch. Unfortunately we got there right as a large tour bus was arriving to dine. This made the restaurant a bit crowded and noisy, and the hotel staff apologized and said our food would take longer to prepare. But it was still served much more quickly than I would have thought possible. We shared the fried noodles with vegetables and the fried rice with egg, and it was all amazing. Mallory ordered macaroni and cheese and couldn’t finish it so we helped her, and that was fantastic, too. Unlike mac and cheese at home, but better. We rounded the meal out by sharing a fruit plate, and the kids had ice cream. We chatted a bit with one of the tour bus guests, who told us his group was Belgian (we’d been trying to guess).
We inquired with the hotel staff about seeing the cormorant fishing demonstration we’d heard of. It does not run every night of the week, but they called to find out for us and told us it would be running tonight, so we put our names in for spots. We’d be picked up by cab at the hotel at 7:40 pm to take us to the 8:00 pm show.
After lunch the heat of the day really hit, and we did our best to beat it. For a couple of hours, the kids goofed around in the river on inner tubes. Steady streams of rafters were passing by, and many of them were taking photos of the kids. Liam and Mallory thought this was funny, and did their best to entertain the rafters by balancing on the tubes, doing belly flops, etc. I sat at a table in the shade to watch them, and did a bit of reading.
Around 3:30 pm, I set out on a bike ride. I wanted to see more of the countryside around the area. The resort has about 50 bikes in seemingly excellent repair for guest use. I headed back upriver on the walking path. There are multiple signs posted on the path telling cyclists and scooters to stay off, but the path was used mostly by cyclists and scooter riders anyway. There are some spots with a few steps up or down where I had to get off and carry the bike, but it wasn’t too bad. I passed lots of farm fields, gardens, rice paddies, a couple of oxen chained out in a field, a pond filled with water lilies. All the sorts of things you’d expect to see in rural China. I also passed multiple spots on the river where folks were in the water cooling off.
I only planned to be gone for an hour (and it was too hot for more than that anyway) so I turned around when I came to the end of the pedestrian path. I am still curious about what more is out there to see.
Back at the hotel, Liam and I jumped in the river for another quick float around to cool off before having a shower and cleaning up for dinner. We were the first ones in the dining room when we went in around 6 pm. We ordered the pineapple chicken and local style fried rice that was made with ham and peanuts in it. Again, both were amazing. We really love the onsite restaurant here.
At 7:40 pm we caught our cab into town to see the cormorant fishing demo. As we were leaving, a hotel staff member saw my camera with me and asked if i am a photographer. I said yes (a hobbyist counts right?), and she said that there is another cormorant fishing show in XingPing that is popular with photographers that we might want to try another night. Hmmm. We didn’t know there was more than one show, and we thought we were seeing ‘the show’ – the one where the fisherman is dressed traditionally and uses the birds and a lantern on an old bamboo raft to catch fish.
So leaving the hotel, we were not confident in the quality of the show we were about to see. We were dropped off by the taxi at an old boat ramp into the river in downtown Yangshuo, behind the main road. Several other families were also there to see the show. By now it was dark, and I wondered what, if anything, we would see. The show started without warning. It consisted of a fisherman, yes, on a bamboo raft, yes, with birds, yes, and they caught fish, yes. But no fancy costume on the fisherman, and he had a generator-powered floodlight rather than a quaint lantern.
And as I said, we essentially watched from a parking lot – so much for a scenic riverside locale. But we did see the birds catch fish, and he did pose for pictures after the show. So for 50 yuan/$10 CDN per person, it was ok. I would call it more of a demonstration than a show (there was no narrative to accompany it), and I would still give the hotel staff feedback that it should be made clearer that there are multiple shows on offer.
We had asked our taxi driver to give us an hour after the show so we could check out the infamous West Street. This turned out to be about 55 minutes too long. West Street was crowded, noisy, tacky, and totally not our vibe. It was our least favourite of all the markets we visited in China.
We went to a KFC to have an egg tart and kill time in an air conditioned environment before our trip back out to the peaceful countryside.
And with that, another day is done. It was a great day overall – this is the best hotel of the trip, and we have fallen in love with Yangshuo
Cook Family Travels 