Yangshuo Mountain Retreat

After a zillion hours of travel (4 flights, 15 hours of layovers and a very speedy 1 hour car ride) we made it to our hotel, had some "welcome tea" and crashed. The car ride was interesting as we passed every single other vehicle on the road. Our driver was going about 25 mph over the speed limit. Granted 80 km per hour was very slow for the road we were on. The 125 km per hour we were traveling was rather craaaazzzyy. Glad this car actually had seat belts! It is totally worth it, though, now that we are here. What a lovely place this is. We are next to the Yulong River and about 10 kilometers outside of Yangshuo town.

We were able to sleep a solid 9 hours from exhaustion and wake up at a normal time here. We chose noodles and fried egg for breakfast and the portions were so big that I couldn't finish. The flavor was lovely and it had some sort of delicious mystery ingredient that we thought might be pickled green beans.

Today we rented bikes from our hotel and took the back way into town. We saw chickens, laundry drying, a couple oxen, lots of half finished buildings and quite a few people going about their daily life on the way. We also passed plenty of people on bikes and motor bikes, along with some crazy mini trucks that had tractor-type engines out front that were so loud and put off lots of exhaust. The wildest one had a tall pile of bamboo teetering precariously. We were lucky to see many sweet children walking home for lunch on our way back from exchanging money. Several of the sweet little kids greeted us with a cheerful "hello!" Most people ignored us, I imagine because this is a tourist area and we are nothing new.

It's such a treat to be able to see in person these Chinese mountains I have always seen in photos.

Riding into town was very fun and quite good exercise. Andrew is much faster than me.

I am wearing my awesome infinity scarf with secret pocket from my mom. It's where I can hide my passport and money, Shh. Don't tell the thugs.

Andrew using FaceTime to chat with Byron for free with wifi. We are fortunate to be well informed about tricks like this due to our awesome Facebook groups of other China adoptive parents.

The rape flower fields are just gorgeous. I was hoping they would be in bloom as I had seen photos of them when researching our trip.

Pretty soon we are getting massages. $20 for a hour was a price we couldn't resist. Signing off for now.

 

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