September 28, 2014 - 24 hours
I woke up to kenz and madi standing over me at 4:30 am. "kale. kale salad? (my nickname). Are you awake? It's time to go." running off of two hours of sleep, I jumped out of bed and put on some clothes. We were out the door by 5, and made it to the train station just in time. Lucky for us, we managed to get a sleeper train for the 24 hour commute there. It really wasn't so bad. Well.. other than the fact that i was on the top bunk, which was pretty high up, and I couldn't sit up straight without hitting my head on the ceiling. Needless to say, we made it to guilin.
September 29, 2014 - hustled
The train ride lasted 24 hours exactly. After hauling our suitcases up and down several flights of stairs, dripping with sweat, we made it out of the train station. Almost immediately we were swarmed with Chinese people saying "yangshuo?" as they pointed to a bunch of buses. One guy, who looked nice enough, started taking our bags and putting them on one of the buses. Then he charged us 40 RMB ($8) to ride the bus. He was supposedly the bus driver.
But once we started driving, we realized that same dude standing in the road counting the money we had just forked over. Sickkkk. We got hustled. But it's okay because we still made it to yangshuo and we still had an unforgettable time. The bus ride from Guilin to Yangshuo was 1-2 hours and it was probably one of the prettiest drives of my life.
After cramming onto a city bus, getting a little lost, and walking for quite some time, we made it to our hostel, Monkey Jane. It was in the most convenient location, too. All we had to do was walk downstairs, down the alley, and we were in the middle of the most adorable little street with shops along the whole thing.
After we settled into our hostel and took showers, we explored, took some pictures, and then hung out on Monkey Jane's roof, which was the only place the wifi would work.
September 30, 2014 - stranger danger
After having a lazy morning, we headed back to Guilin to float down the Li River on bamboo rafts, which would take us back to Yangshuo. But when we got there, we were informed that it was too late to do it :/ sooo we wandered around Guilin, and ended up paying some dudes to take us on a fake bamboo raft around some island or something. It was suuuuper sketchy. But it turned out to be super pretty and we got some cool pictures.
Afterwards, we crossed this bridge. But it looked more like someone threw down some ropes and then some wood on top of it. Picture the bridge Shrek has to cross to save process fiona from the dragon. It was super sketchy. If you haven't already realized it yet, a lot of things in China are pretty sketchy.
After taking the bus back to Yangshuo, five of us were starving and in search of some yummy, cheap food. Around 1 am, we found this guy who was making noodles so we decided to give them a shot. They were d e l i c i o u s. While we were waiting for them to be cooked, some guy offered us beers. We explained that we didn't drink, but I'm not sure he understood because when we sat down to eat, he offered them to us again. We figured out how to say "we don't drink alcohol" in Chinese and he replied "coca cola?" one of us said yes, and he proceeded to count us, and then went to the convenient store that was 30 feet away and bought us all cokes. What a sweetie!
We invited him to eat with us and then ended up inviting another dude to do the same because he was eating all by himself. He spoke fairly good English, so it was fun to just sit and talk to him while the other dude pretended he knew what was going on. We stayed out there until 2 or 2:30 and then decided we should probably go to sleep. It was definitely a night I'll remember for the rest of my life!
October 01, 2014 - the best day
We decided to rent mopeds for the day so we could go do the mud caves and see some other parts of yangshuo. At first, the people who were renting them to us wouldn't let us go, because we were all apparently pretty bad at driving, and the roads were busier than ever due to the holiday. But after a bit of practice, they gave us the okay and we were off.
I can't even describe to you the thrill of zooming through the mountains in yangshuo on a little scooter. It was so incredibly beautiful and so fun!
Our first stop was the dragon bridge. supposedly. It wasn't as cool as it was talked up to be, but we did get some good pictures and some flower crowns for 5 RMB that didn't even fit our heads.
After that, we found a place with the bamboo rafts that we had gone to Guilin to do. It was so incredible. We had this adorable little chinese man who rowed us (is that what you call it?) down the river. By far one of my favorite things I've done in China thus far.
Our last stop waaaas the mud caves. What an experience that was. I'm 80% sure most of, if not all of it was man-made. But it was still cool. We had a tour guide who actually spoke English. We saw some neat stuff in the caves, but we all just wanted to get to the mud! Eventually, we did get there. It was sooo cold. Since we didn't want to risk losing our phones, we had way of taking pictures other than the photographer who was there. So we ended up getting a few of those. I think we lasted about 20 minutes in the mud, and then we were all ready to get out and get cleaned up.
Sadly, the showers to rinse off were cold too. So that was pretty awful. But the next room had hot springs, which was real nice. It was like soaking in a hot bath, which is my favorite thing ever.
After sitting in the hot springs for a long time, we realized it was 5:45, and we were supposed to have the mopeds back by 7.
On the way back, half of us got split up from the other half, which was no bueno. I was the one driving on the way back while Sonya was on the back getting to figure out where the freak to go. Driving through that traffic, on a scooter, with a gimpy helmet, and having no idea where I was going.. was probably one of the most nerve-wracking things I've ever experienced. BUT, somehow, we made it back safe and sound. Thank goodness. What a day.
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