To ensure smooth travelling, plan your trip early in advance. We wanted to go to China over the Chinese New Year break; we started planning in October! Yangshuo was not our original destination, though. We originally planned to go to Sichuan, to see a fellow MTC alumna/ Dragon Boater named Laura Packer. She was a Peace Corp volunteer in Leshan, Sichuan . After we booked our plane tickets to Chengdu , we got in touch with her. "I won't be in Chengdu during that time, I am heading to Yangshuo!" She told Robert over the phone. Great! Where on earth is Yangshuo?! I'd never heard of the place. I looked up the place in my monstrous dictionary and I got this: "Guilin is the best under the Heaven, but yangshuo tops it all!" That doesn't tell me much about the place, it simply says that it is better than Guilin. Without much hope, I thought I would check the WWW. Turned out the Web was loaded with info from backpackers around the world telling you everything you need to know about Yangshuo! The next step was to change our plane tickets to Guilin instead of Chengdu. We were surprised at how inexpensive the tickets were. We bought a Taipei-Hong Kong-Guilin, Hong Kong-Taipei ticket through Cathay Pacific for NT$12,500! The only leg we didn't book was for the Guilin-HK one. That's because we were going to Canton from Yangshuo.

Our plane left CKS on Friday, January 31st, at 15:30. We had to transfer in Hong Kong for our flight to Guilin. We left Kai-tak airport at 18:45 and arrived at Guilin International Airport at 20:00 sharp. The Guilin airport was IMPRESSIVE; it was clean, high-class, and shiny. I don't know if that is a good adjective for an airport-shiny; but it was. Immigration was a joke; it was very smooth. We were a bit worried at first because we had printed materials with us, and the flight attendants on the plane told us that printed materials from the West were not allowed. I had this 600-page fiction on the KMT and their little big mishaps with the Communists. Robert and Lynn both had airline magazines and other reading materials like Tang Dynasty Poetry and novels of sort. In the end, though, they didn't even check!

Outside in the airport lobby, we found the airport shuttle bus to Metro Guilin. The bus was sparkling clean; the cost to town was only RMB20 (a cab driver was asking us for RMB400 for a trip from the airport straight to Yangshuo, he was nuts). The bus driver was friendly, the service girl had on this bright blue uniform and a great smile. Once we started moving, she began to recite something in Chinese, a brief intro to Guilin City, I think. She was speaking very fast and we weren't quite used to the accent. She had a very sweet voice, though.

The bus was supposed to take the passengers to some major hotel; we didn't bother to find out. We just wanted them to drop us off at the train station where we could catch a minibus to Yangshuo. They dropped us off NEAR the train station, a good 3-4 blocks away. Luckily there was a Hong Kong guy on our bus who was heading to Yangshuo as well, and he knew the way. By the time we got to the train station, it was well past 21:00. Since it was getting close to Chinese New Year, the buses were still running; normally, the last bus was at 19:00 (I was told this later by a restaurant owner named Ebo in Yangshuo).

We've heard horror stories about how bus drivers tried to rip foreigners off on bus prices. Ours didn't. They told us RMB8, which was reasonable--only RMB2 higher than what the Web quoted. It was also close to Chinese New Year, and since everything was supposed to be more expensive around then, we took it.

The trip took 90 minutes. We were starved by the time we reached Yangshuo. We checked into the Sihai Hotel. It was a mistake, but we didn't know better. We were tired and hungry.

The Sihai wasn't really that bad. The room we had was clean, but for the same price, which was RMB15 per person per night, we could've done better. The Sihai is located right on West Street, where all the foreign cafes were located. It was noisy at night. We didn't have our own bathroom, which was no major problem; but the problem was, the hot water in the common bathroom was not very hot. We were determined to move the next morning.

After breakfast, we ran into our MTC alumna, Laura Packer, the Peace Corp Volunteer from Sichuan who we were supposed to meet in Yangshuo. She'd just arrived the night before as well. She told us the place she stayed at was great. We moved there.

The place was known to foreigners as "The Good Companion Holiday Inn", the locals called it "Qun-feng". We had a triple, with our own private bath, and paid RMB15 each (same cost as the Sihai...).

95% of the cafes were located on West Street, that was where most foreigners had their meals. The food was good. They had all sort of pancakes and pizzas and other western food. The food was not authentically western, but it was close enough and good and inexpensive as well. Our favorite café was the one a few doors down from our hotel on Pantao Road called Ebo's Cafe (he had another sign that read "Sabrina's Cafe, but it is all Ebo's). Ebo was the name of the owner. He ran the cafe with his sister, Judy, and their mother. Mom was the cook, and sometimes Judy helped. Ebo was always very friendly and helpful. On the afternoon that we left Yangshuo, Lynn had an order of baked potatoes. When the potatoes were done, it was cutting very close to our bus departure time. Ebo bagged the potatoes, and said, "Oh, I guess you want butter to go with that, too, huh?!" So he emptied one of his salt shakers and filled it with butter. What a guy!

Another one of our favorites was William's. William had an artistic son; he held an art exhibition for the boy once. There were paintings by the boy along the walls of the cafe and an old invite to the exhibition. It described the boy as "an artless child". I think that was meant to be a complement. William's was probably the only café in town that did not have a big screen TV. Since there really wasn't anything to do after dark, all cafes equipped with video equipments would show two western hip flicks each night, free of charge.

We liked the Mei You Cafe as well. They had very good fried rice there, and the portions were huge. The Red Star Express had some very good pizzas that took half an hour to make. The food there was a bit on the high side compared to the other cafes.

One might say, "Why are you drooling over western food while you are in China? Shouldn't you be trying some Chinese food instead?" But believe me, for those of us who have been living in Asia for years, pancakes and omlettes are actually a delicacy.

Most of these cafeé owners spoke very good English, and they were not afraid to ask questions like, "How do you spell 'toilet'?"

Since the town people had seen many foreigners passing through this small place, they were very friendly. The town government even invited all the travelers to a Chinese New Year reception. That was where we ran into another fellow MTC student, Ken Ross, all to our surprise!

Yangshuo is the name of a county as well as the name of a township. Yangshuo Township is the largest township in Yangshuo County, and it is also where the County Government is located. Yangshuo Township is small; it only has three major streets: Pantao Road, West Street, and one other which we could not see the street sign for the entire nine days we were there. Pantao is the main street that takes you into Guilin. West Street and that no-name one run perpendicular to Pantao. West Street is where all the travelers hang out.

On the corner of West Street and Pantao are bike rental shops. Bikes are the best way to get around in Yangshuo. Rental rates are around RMB5 a day, with a deposit of RMB200 or your passport. The hotel we stayed at had bike rentals for its guests, and so we got them for RMB5 a day without having to place a deposit.

There are four major attractions that tourists go to: Xingping Township, Fuli Township, Black Buddha Cave, and Moon Hill.

The best way to get to Xingping and Fuli is to take a boat there and bike back. The boat ride to Fuli only takes 45 minutes downstream the Li River. The bike ride back to Yangshuo takes about the same amount of time (it is only a mere 6km). The boat ride costs RMB35 a person; expensive, but worth it. The view was magnificent and breathtaking. We carried our bikes onto the boat with us, something that was expected.

The day we went to Fuli was market day. The town had only one major street, and that was where the market was. People from surrounding villages came to town to buy all sorts of things, from pigs to rice to straw baskets. That was the day when the dentists were open for business as well. We saw two dentists at work while we were there. There was no clinic or office; they were examining patients right on the side of the road, next to the pigs in their baskets and the dried goods merchants.

Xingping is upstream the Li River. It takes three hours to get there by boat and approximately the same amount of time to bike back. The boat ride costs RMB65 a person. The first half of the ride was boring--boring scenery, that is; the second half was beautiful. We never got to Xingping, though. The day we went, we left Yangshuo in the afternoon. The sun was setting just right before we reached Xingping, so our boat driver said that we had to turn around and head back.

Black Buddha Cave and Moon Hill are right across the road from one another. Those two are a must see. The cave was fun and adventurous. We had to climb by ropes to get to some parts of the cave. It was very deep, and at parts very narrow. At the very bottom of the cave is an underground waterway. In the summer time, you can go into the water and walk to its origin, which would take an hour.

Across the road from the Black Buddha Cave is the Moon Hill. It is called the Moon Hill because right at the very top of the hill is a big opening that from afar looks like a half moon. The hike up the hill was only 300 meters. From atop, you can see the entire Yangshuo County.

When we had enough of the tourist attractions, we took our bikes and went exploring into the neighboring villages. That was when we had to go through mud roads covered with cow manure. It was quite an experience.

Yangshuo has many great buys: silk jackets, silk scarves, silk lingerie for the ladies and silk boxers for the men; gruesome looking masks, batiks, wall drapes, pottery, and other knick-knacks. The best bargains you can find are the shops on West Street. Those people tend to start at a reasonable price. The closer you get to the river, the more outrageous the asking price gets. Shops and stalls along the riverfront are the worst. They are there for rich tourists coming in from Guilin who don't get a chance to wander onto West Street. The usual asking price there is generally double the asking price on West Street.

West Street is mainly a place for backpackers. The no-name street is the market place and shopping area for locals. Yangshuo is famous for its pumelo, and you can get that on the no-name street. If you don't know what the going price is, go ask Ebo.

Guilin is the cross road for many railways. From there one can head north to Peking, east to Canton, west to Kunming, and south to Liuzhou. From Canton, one can take the bus, boat, or train to Hong Kong, or the bus or boat to Macau. From Kunming, one can take the train north to Chengdu or south to Hanoi, Vietnam. From Liuzhou, one can take the boat to Hainan Dao in Guangdong province.

From Yangshuo, there are various means of transportation to Hong Kong and Canton. One way to get to Hong Kong from Yangshuo is to first take the bus to Wuzhou, and then from Wuzhou take a hovercraft to Hong Kong. Going to Canton has a similar route: first a bus to Wuzhou, then an overnight boat to Canton. Another option would be to take a direct bus straight from Yangshuo to Canton. There are two different types of buses to Wuzhou, a local bus and a sleeper bus. The sleeper bus has bunk seating which allows you to lie down. The direct bus to Canton is a sleeper bus.

The bus-boat option to Canton takes a total of 24 hours, very comfortable, as we were told by other travelers. The direct bus was supposed to take over 16 hours, and we had been told that it was a hellish journey. We had it pretty smooth. Our bus left Yangshuo at 14:30, and we were told by the CITS guy that got the tickets for us that we would arrive in Canton at 6:00 the next morning. It turned out that that was what it used to take before they finished the new highway. As it was, the highway was completed and it took only twelve hours, with the rest stops and dinner break included!

Thus, we arrived in Canton at 2:00 in the morning! We were lucky that I had relatives in Canton, we just went knocking on their door at around 3:00 in the morning. The other foreigners on the same bus with us were totally at awe. One guy had his Lonely Planet out to the page where the Canton map was supposed to be and showed the cab drivers the hotel he wanted to go to. None of the cab drivers he talked to were willing to take him. I thought he was having communication problem, so I offered to help. He showed me his page. I nearly dropped dead in laughter. He was showing the cab drivers the map of Guiyang, which is a city in Guizhou. Guizhou is two provinces northwest of Guangdong.

Despite the fact that the guy at CITS told us the wrong arrival hour, we liked him a lot. His name was John. He had a little desk in the lobby of our hotel (The Good Companion Holiday Inn). He was helpful and didn't give us iffy prices like the other café owners who said they could arrange transportation tickets. I asked John if there would be a lot of smoking on the sleeper bus, to which he replied, "Now that could be a problem..." He just killed me.

There was a little bit of smoking on the bus. We were lucky that the bus wasn't full. When the bus first took off, some people started to light up, so Lynn and Robert started to sing this silly song that they made up: " Don't smoke, please don't smoke! Smoking is bad for your health, oh please, please, please don't smoke!" I just buried myself under my book and couldn't stop laughing. The smokers got the idea, and did a pretty good job of keeping the smoking to a minimal.

We stayed in Canton for four days at my relatives'. They stuffed us silly while we were there. From there, we moved on to Macau and then to Hong Kong.

We arrived back at CKS at 23:55, on Sunday, February 16th, and went right back to school the next morning. Needless to say, we were dead tired in class.