To be a sybarite... or not to be sybaritic

Coming into this break, we knew that we only had a week to see as much as we could in the Guilin area. We also knew that we only had this time to recharge our batteries before heading into the stretch run of the school year. With that in mind, we tried to strike a balance between cramming as much as we could into or itinerary and taking time to just sit and soak in the view from our balcony.

We spent a bunch of time wandering the town of Yangshuo itself, ignoring the touts and admiring the wares of the vendors. In particular Paul was interested in the purple jade carvings and the musical instruments (Chinese oboes in particular) while Kristen was more taken with the beautiful textiles on display. In the end we did some bartering (Kristen got a wonderful “peacock” sundress – the vendor started at 180 and we ended up paying 45 yuan which was definitely the best bartering we have done so far) while Paul bought a pair of hand knit shoes from an extremely elderly homunculus (DEF.: Homunculus- N. Tiny, perfectly formed, human).

We saw the cormorants and the coir raincoated fishermen, but declined the offers to go with them to watch them fish (hugely expensive and from all accounts extremely staged). We weren’t able to do any rock climbing because of the slippery, wet conditions (well one day we might have been able to but we were out on a bike ride for most of the day), but we consoled ourselves by enjoying almost four hours of spa treatments over the last four days. We found one really great traditional Chinese therapy place that specialized in acupressure, meridian line massage and “cupping” (like reiki). We had two hour long foot massages as well as back massages there. Sitting, sipping ginger and osmanthus flower tea while reclining looking out the window onto the small river flowing beside you, and having someone apply ancient Chinese relaxation techniques to your feet for over an hour was hard to take.

To balance out the sybaritic massages, we also hiked up a bunch of the hills in town, and headed out on another bike excursion. This one was down the Li river towards the historic village of Fuli (a fishing village built over seven hundred years ago and known for its fan painting artisans). We biked our way along backroads without seeing any other tourists. Instead we saw small village after small villages, weaved our way between rice paddies, frog ponds, fish ponds and vegetable gardens, passed water buffalo herders and were passed by all manner of motorized vehicles (usually with their engines exposed and the belts repaired with glue and leather).

We got lost a few times and had to ask for directions, but the ride was pretty gentle and it only took a few hours to get to  the river crossing. There we negotiated with the boat owners and got them down to 5 yuan for each of us (with the bikes coming for free).

We wandered around Fuli for a while, admiring the old town feel, trying not to feel too upset about some of the poverty we saw and eventually made our way to one of the many painting workshops that were set up around the village. The artisans work mostly in family groups, passing on their skills to each new member, so that most shops have distinctive styles. The paintings (on fans, wall hangings, etc) are almost all sold in Yangshou and Guilin by brokers who come and buy from the artisans in bulk.  We hadn’t expected to buy anything, but after seeing so many beautiful paintings we decided we really wanted one. We negotiated (not too hard) and bought a five foot long painting of the scenery near Fuli for a little over $15 Canadian.

Maoist graffiti? An old advertisement?

Frog pond where they raise frogs for the market in Yangshuo.

This look is "intrepid Kristen"

To get back we decided to take one of the main roads (it saved us about an hour of biking). Looking back we realize this was probably a bad decision. Although there were plenty of other bikes on the road, the traffic was well... typical Chinese traffic. In other words unpredictable and poor. We also had to cross through a tunnel at one point, and even though we walked our bikes on the narrow sidewalk, it was a bit of a harrowing crossing. In any case we rode cautiously and defensively back into town and made it back without any incident.