Travel and Dining Tips for Yangshuo China

Bamboo rafting down the Li river, checked off the list!  We wrapped up around 2pm with plenty of time to still explore more of Yangshuo, Guilin, China.  This area was once under water thousands of years ago, and still has active caves, much like in the Yucatan peninsula.  I was happy seeing at least one cave, another “check off the list” type item.

Not exactly sure what cave we should visit we picked the one that was farthest away from where we were, thinking it would be more rustic and less touristy.  After tough negotiations with a passing by tuk tuk driver we were in route. A common practice in China, everything has to be negotiated. This by far was the longest tuk tuk ride of my life (roughly 45 minutes), let me say not quite like a Lexus ride.

The driver was going to wait for us to finish walking through the caves and then take us back, so being the nice guy that I am bought him some lunch and a few bottles of H2O.

The Caves- We felt investing the time to get outside of Yangshuo was worth the investment, well, it was a giant tourist trap!  However we did take the tour that was given in Mandarin, because (of course) English tours were unavailable, shocker.  The caves were indeed beautiful with stalagmites and stalactites everywhere, live rock, cavern type ponds with a beautiful reflections.  We did however get a little ahead of the tour, more to avoid the bumping and pushing!

Biking & Eating- This is quickly becoming my favorite past time!  We took the pirate map provided by our hotel (Dragon Villas) and ventured off through the mountains. We peddled through small villages and took a deeper look into what Yangshuo is based on before the tourists influx came, agriculture.  See the photos below in the gallery to get a better insight of how back breaking their work is.  This is China and everything is done by hand, it was not uncommon to see women that were so “hunch backed” by the age of 45, all from bending, picking, and harvesting their families crops.

Now on to a more soothing subject, the eating!  After about a 2 hour bike ride all over and outside of the city center we came across a random street vendor.  This guy had all types of freshly roasted local nuts & berries.  I had never in my life seen almonds still sold in their hard outer shell.  So granted I bought a some, along with the fresh goji berries he had, another new food find!

The almonds were the BEST I had ever had, perfectly wood roasted, slightly salted, and just done to perfection!  I would love to get more!!!  The goji berries (commonly put into green or flower tea in China) were sweet, slightly tart, and perfect to eat on their own.  My kind of meal!  On the way back we stopped to grab a few photos of the sunset by the hotel on the top of a bridge (going over the Li River.  It was beautiful, but Africa is still in first place for sunset photography!

check out the rest of the photos below-

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Eating in the Old City (Part II)

China has been great to me so far… We went to this restaurant in old Shanghai (post street snacking.. poor Lassie). It was beautiful… nobody in the joint spoke a lick of English-so we pretty much had the luck of faith!  One of the chefs that was with me had on some Australian board shorts and sure enough a familiar dialect was heard.  Someone jumped in after we had ordered about half the food- it was the voice of a Chinese guy saying that he studied in Kangaroo nation for 10 years- and how could he help us order….

Now we were really in business!  We went from pointing at a few pictures, drawing a pigs face on the back of the servers guest check book (to let her know we wanted some pork), to just plain rolling the dice.  Not even remembering what we had ordered up to this point we just let this new found friend finish out our order.

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Old Shanghai- (Part I)

After arriving and seeing a few things around the Expo Site I was dying for some real Shanghai… you know the image we all have of China! Let’s forget about the giant Trinitrons and flashing lights- let’s get back to the basics… fabric markets, street food, and wild dogs roaming around (then cooked on a stick for you..)!

Well, lucky to say I have met an excellent chef here- who was given the job of making sure I got settled in. (sounds dangerous)So needless to say we have become friends and from Day 1, and has shown me the starter ropes of Shanghai! Enough to say hello, thank you, and a few other things that can only lead one to get hitched or in big trouble- thanks for the lessons in Mandarin!

The real China that every chef is craving for… I had a friend (another chef) visit me from the States who’s general plan was to see Shanghai- I agreed but in trade he was going to have to help me in the kitchen… (… so much for that vacation he thought he was about to have!)  Guys this post is dedicated to the good times we had in OLD Shanghai… what’s actually left of the 200 year old French Colony.

Not sure what was better- the street food or the 18 items we ordered at the restaurant (no English on the menu… yes, a major crap shoot in what was coming out..)