The boys and I took our first trip to the China countryside at the end of February. We went with two other families, with kids of similar ages. It was a great trip, because while the kids kept each other busy playing tag and cards, I was able to take in the beautiful scenery of Yangshuo.
The draw of this area of the country are the mountains called "karsts," which is landscape or terrain that results from the weathering of bedrock that is soluble in water (in this case, limestone). This type of landscape develops slowly over tens of thousands of years or longer. An interesting feature of these types of landscape are the caves that are formed beneath. We were able to go into one, and although it was lit up like the glitzy Vegas strip, it was quite impressionable!
Among the karsts, there is plenty of flat land. Farmers grow miles and miles of crops. I was so overwhelmed by the hard work that these people do each day. Old men digging up huge parcels of land with just a shovel, no farming machines in sight. Women carrying heavy loads of materials in buckets balanced on bamboo poles on their shoulders, no trucks in sight. Small children too young to go to school, out weeding in the fields; shouldn't they be playing?
We stayed in a nice little inn by the Li River called the Snow Lion Mountain Inn. It was rustic, but clean, and had modern Western bathrooms (no squatty potties, phew!). We were the only guests in the whole inn, so we had the run of the place, which was fantastic! The food was delicious and really cheap. The forecast was for rain all weekend, but happily, we didn't see a drop all weekend. To top it off, Sunday was sunny and quite warm.
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| The charming Snow Lion Mountain Inn. |
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| Breath-taking karst scenery. This is the Li River near our inn. |
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| Inside Silver Cave with its psychedelic color-changing lights. This cave was accidentally discovered about a decade ago by some children who were playing in the area. |
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| Taking a break... being a world traveler is tough work. |
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| The town of Yangshou with its karst background. Beautiful! |
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| The Chinese 20-yuan note has a scene from the Li River on the back of it. |
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| Here it is... the scene from the 20-yuan note. But it's not as peaceful as it looks on the note because of the loud motors on the many boats which go up and down the Li River with sightseers, which I guess would include us. |
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| The boys on our Li River boat cruise. |
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| Impressions Sanjie Liu show. The stage is the Li River and lights light up the karst landscape beyond. The 600+ actors in the show are local farmers and fishermen. They perform in this show every night of the week! |
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| Here we all are on the bamboo rafting trip. It was peaceful, quiet and beautiful (no motorized boats in this area). |
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| One of the crazy Chinese rafters. As usual, a cigarette dangling precariously out of his mouth... |
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| On top of Moon Hill, one of the karsts that is famous because it has a half-moon shape carved out of its top. |
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| Our little world travelers with Ding, our local guide. |
