lost in the mountains of Yangshuo

I've left the cities of Hong Kong and Guangzhou behind and traveled west to Guilin and down the Li River to YANGSHUO!, a little backpacker town with dozens of bike trails and villages in the surrounding countryside.

Buddhist carvings and a fisherman on a bamboo raft, in Guilin.



On the Li River cruise from Guilin to Yangshuo.



Hanging out with some Japanese moms on tour! They loved to hear me practice my terrible Japanese.



At the exact spot on the Li River that inspired the back of the 20 yuan bill (Chinese currency).



Biking in the countryside outside of Yangshuo, rice paddies and karst mountains.



My bike crosses the Yulong River, shut up, I know it's a girl's bike, it was cheaper. :P



I got a little lost on the wrong side amongst little village roads in the afternoon, and then I turned a corner and instead of just saying a friendly "ni hao" to me, the villagers started saying "Hello, bamboo boat!!" trying to sell me passage across the river, and lemme tell you, I've never been so happy to be pressured by touts. :) Thought I might not be able to reach Yangshuo in time for the night show, but this raftsman saved me.



That night I went to the Impressions Yangshuo night show, which is a music, dance, and light show performed right on the Li River in bamboo boats - absolutely stunning. The director also did the Beijing 2008 opening show for the Olympic games.




I met a professor at a local university who was interested in practicing his English and hung out with him and his friend and climbed one of the local mountains. And we umm ... pretended we were King Kong?



They were amazing ... and they treated me to "beer fish", a local specialty.



It's weird not to see a convenience store. Even in the most rural parts I traveled to in Korea or Japan there was always a 7-11 or a FamilyMart nearby - here, they still have them, but they're small family-run stores (one was actually called "Small Store") and you have to act horrified when they overcharge you for a bottle of water so they'll lower the price. Ohhh how they love fleecing tourists.

I'm really used to uploading all my pictures all at once to Flickr and it's strange to have to choose the best ones. I'm uploading 24 right now, and it looks like it's going to take about an hour or so. Hope you guys enjoy them, more to come! Tonight I'm going to join some fishermen on a cormorant fishing tour (the cormorant birds actually go underwater and catch the fish and bring them back to the boat!) and then tomorrow night I'll be taking the overnight train to Kunming in Yunnan province, then onward to Dali City and Lijiang in the foothills of Tibet.