Guilin is the city often mentioned on the tour routes, but its southeastern counterpart, Yangshuo, is the real tourist mecca. Often referred to as a "backpacker's paradise" it boasts amazing scenery, tourist services, relatively cheap prices, and a variety of activities to keep you entertained. Its also the operations base of My Journey! This town feels like one of the stops on the travelers' trail, with lots of the same people you'd expect in Katmandu, Sihanoukville, or Dali. It's a place to visit when you've been on the road in China for a while, and have a craving for a bit of relaxation and some western comforts (especially in the food department).
There is so much to do in Yangshuo. Many travellers use Yangshuo as a base and spend their time exploring the karst scenery and rivers, or checking out caves and local temples. Renting a bike and taking off into the countryside, with or without a guide, is one popular strategy. There is a whole community of rock climbers, so if you want more adventure, rockclimbing, mudsliding and caving are all available.
Its possible to become more familiar with Chinese culture too, you can experience foot reflexology and traditional massage or attend a Tai Chi, Kungfu or Chinese cooking classes. Taste the pomeloes, oranges, horse chestnuts and persimmon that are specialties of the area. Or simply sit by the river bank and watch the comorant fishermen. Many visitors just take it easy in the many cafes and bars. While this certainly isn't the whole story, the town is in some ways a break from the rest of China. For this reason, it is very popular with foreigners who live and work elsewhere in China.
The area around Yangshuo is renowned throughout China, and probably the world, for its Karst landscape where there are hundreds of limestone hills dotting the countryside. The beautiful scenery here is a common subject of Chinese paintings as well as the inspiration for poetry. There are several popular areas for Karst landscape sight-seeing, such as Yangdi-Xingping scenic area and the Yulong River valley. These and more can be covered by boat trips, bamboo-raft cruises, cycling, trekking and combinations of the various modes. A hike along walking tracks to the tops of some of the peaks, is well worth the effort for the breathtaking panorama.
Nightly performances of the Impression Liu Sanjie show run almost all year, created Academy Award winning director Zhang Yi Mou. It features a cast of 500 including some local farmers in the boats wearing traditional Zhuang, Miao and Yao dress. Based on a traditional Chinese folktale, it is set to music and includes an impressive light show that used to dim the lights in Yangshuo town when the show first opened! |
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