Saturday, May 12, 2007

Yangshuo

Incredibly enough, I am getting a great wireless signal here in the Morning Sun Hotel, in Yangshuo, China, so I can write to my heart’s content.

Yesterday went off pretty much as I described in my last entry. It was a long day, using virtually every mode of transportation imaginable. The much-anticipated arrival into mainland China was pretty cool. Shenzhen Airport had an instantly different feel than Hong Kong. There was a collective “Toto-we’re-not-in-Kowloon-anymore” moment as soon as we saw the serious-looking soldiers with machine guns guarding the ATM machine. After a short flight (about 300 miles) to Guilin, we gathered our bags and headed into the steamy humid night to find our shuttle bus. Nighttime at Guilin Airport was quite a sight, with neon palm trees everywhere.

We arrived at our hotel at 11:15 PM and trudged up to our rooms. Arriving so late was a little surreal, as the Morning Sun Hotel is unusual by Western standards. Looking at the roadsides as we drove into town was pretty interesting—though it was late, there were still a lot of people out walking around, riding on motorbikes, getting haircuts playing cards, sitting around and smoking, etc.

The hotel has about 30 rooms and is really more like a country inn or a B&B in its ambiance. All the rooms opening onto an open air atrium (sort of like an Escher drawing) with lots of stairways and beautiful and intricate wooden lattices. The room is basic but comfortable; hard beds, a clean bathroom, and a TV that gets 120 channels—all in Chinese. I watched a little bit of TV when I got into the room. It was some sort of kung fu program, I think, except all the actors were in monkey costumes and it was set in an ancient dynasty. Actually a lot of the TV channels seem to feature medieval kung fu warriors.

This morning, I got up at 6 AM. I think my adrenaline level is pretty high on this trip, so when I wake up early I have a hard time falling back to sleep. Although it was raining pretty hard, the view was beautiful. There is a pond below the hotel and a 500-foot tall limestone karst right on the other side. I went down to the lobby around 8 AM and ran into one of my fellow travelers. We went up the street and had some breakfast (banana crepes, eggs, coffee, and toast for about $3 US), watching people walk by in the rain. There is a Southeast Asian quality to this place which is very relaxing; people are very gentle and sweet, always smiling, and are friendly even when they don’t understand a word you’re saying.

At 10 AM, we gathered in the lobby for to begin our bicycle tour. However, because of the rain, Dragon rearranged the schedule and we did a tai chi class instead. The class was comical in an I-Love-Lucy sort of way, with all of us trying to follow the moves of the tai chi master by looking in a mirror at the front of the room. Fortunately, we were all equally clumsy (my apologies to those in the group reading this 2 weeks from now)! It was nice to watch the tai chi master do it the proper way.

We had a great lunch at the hotel restaurant, though I was disappointed that the local specialty (bamboo rat) was nowhere to be seen. Following lunch, there was a walking tour of Yansghuo. This brings me up to now. The rain has finally stopped, though its still cloudy and drizzly. We have the rest of the afternoon free and are meeting at 7 PM to travel to a nearby “minority village”, where we are going to be having dinner with the local people. Should be interesting.

Yangshuo is a beautiful place and the limestone karst formations are really amazing. One does get the sense that we are seeing a little tiny “bubble” of the place that has evolved for the convenience of Western tourists. There is a slightly staged quality to the activities, lots of cappuccino bars and internet cafes with names like "Mickey Mao's", peasants posing for photos, and plenty of desperate looking people selling picture books and trinkets to the Americans and Europeans on the street.

But really, you only have to walk a block off the main drag to experience the real thing.






1 comment:

Darcy Kremin said...

Barry,

Your blog is fantastic. I feel like I'm there with you all. We have set up a link to your blog on the section website. I will be sure to mention it at the Awards banquet Friday night.

Say hi to Juan for me. We miss him -- oh, I can't imagine the amount of e-mails he's been getting. Please tell him I'm taking good care of the section as best I can in his absence.

Darcy Kremin, AICP
Director Elect, Northern Section