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-