Yangshou and Chengdu Vacation

27-Sep-08

It was a one hour flight from Shenzhen to Guilin Airport. As soon as we left the modern Guilin Airport we were instantly out in the boondocks. Our van bumped along a gravel road for a few miles, and we encountered oxen in the middle of the road.

The sights we saw on our 2 hour van ride to Yangshou were very diverse; from beautiful countryside with lots of greenery and awesome rock formations, to squalor type housing and run down buildings. We also came across little towns with busy streets.

We finally crossed the Li River and passed a little rundown village and pulled up to the side of “The Riverside Retreat.” It was fabulous! We had a clean room with a balcony. The view was spectacular. Rachel and Greydy were happy!

We all washed up and went downstairs to have lunch on the patio. The weather was perfect in that it was not too hot. It was a little on the cool side. We were so glad that the little restaurant at the hotel offered both Chinese and western food. They were also very accommodating to change things for us.

We walked 15 minutes down the gravel road to the river. We passed cows and pig stalls and heard their grunting and squealing and could smell them as well. It was not pleasant. We crossed over the river on a little boat for 1 yuan each.

We found out later that we had turned the wrong direction in the town. Instead of hitting the tourist area, we were in the local area. I found a jacket and a purse and the girls found some stuff too. We got our first intro into bargaining.

On the way back up the gravel-dirt road, big dump trucks were going back and forth and left water making it very muddy. We made it back in one piece, just a little dirtier.

We ate dinner on the patio. It was so nice and relaxing. Barbara, another teacher from QSI was staying at the same place and joined us. As the sky darkened we could see the fog come in and cover up a lot of the rock formations. It looked a little ghostly. We wondered what the local legends might be. The city lights came on and it was so pretty. The horns from the river boats finally stopped about 8:00 and all was quiet.


28-Sep-08

Wow, what a day! We woke up to the sound of a local villager practicing a trumpet. Fortunately we are early risers! We arranged with the hotel to take the bus to the town of Fuli to go to an open market and have lunch at a nice restaurant by the river. Then we were to take another bus to Qing Ping where we were to climb a hill to see a temple and then meet the uncle of one of the hotel workers. He would take us for a 3 hour boat ride up the river.

Well, nothing turned out like we expected. We got off the bus in Fuli and weren’t sure where to go. We saw what we thought was an open market, but it did not seem like what was described to us. Tom left us to see what he could find out. Of course, no one spoke English. Tom came back 45 min. later and guessed from seeing tour busses where it might be that we should go. We took our first motorcycle taxi down to the river. (The taxi was a 3 wheeler motorcycle with a little covered wagon on the back.) We saw a few vendors and bought some souvenirs. The river was very pretty. We all decided that the Three Sister’s Restaurant was not a fit place to eat. We returned in another motorcycle taxi and took the next bus that was standing room only for 40 min. to our next destination.

When we got off the bus a little old lady kept following us and speaking in Chinese. She would not leave us alone. We found a decent restaurant that also served western food. As we were ordering, an old man came up to us and was jabbering away in Chinese. We kept shaking our heads and telling him to go away. He got on his cell phone and kept putting it up to our ears. Finally, I heard him say the girl’s name at the hotel. Then I pulled out our paper and asked if he was the uncle of the hotel worker. He was, and we were very embarrassed. He was there very early. We were supposed to call him 2:30. He showed up at 12:30. The little old lady was his scout. She followed us when we got off the bus so she could tell him where we were.

We bought him a coke, and he waited while we ate lunch. We ordered cheese pizzas. They cooked them one at a time, and it took forever! We were finally done at 2:00 and we decided not to climb the hill to the temple. We found it was a 1 hour hike, not 20 minutes like the hotel girl said. As we were eating, Barbara pulled out her Lonely Planet Guide. She read the warning about not using unlicensed boat operators that were illegal. The boats were unsafe and could capsize. Great. So, we had no idea what to expect. We had a plan that if we felt it were really unsafe, one of the girls would “get sick” and we would just come back.

We took another motorcycle taxi to the uncle’s house. It was a 25 minute bumpy and precarious ride down a dirt road. Tom sat in the back with the uncle and helped him hold onto his bike on the back. It was a hot miserable ride. We stopped at one point to take a picture of the famous mountains that are on the 20 Yuan bill.

We finally got to his house and walked down to the river to get to the boat. To our amazement and my horror, the boat was there, but not quite there. It was in pieces. The uncle and 2 workers had to assemble them. First out of the bushes came the rafts. Then came the overhang coverings. Next came the bamboo seats. And last came the lawnmower sized motor on a long rod. (I did a lot of praying!)

As his helpers were putting the boats together, we were trying to tell him that we did not want to ride for 3 hours. I was feeling so uncomfortable and responsible for the girls. We felt stuck because the motorcycle taxi had left. The girls still wanted to go, but not for 3 hours. We just wanted a 30 minute ride one was and then to bring us back. He was trying to tell us something and kept writing in the dirt in Chinese. Finally, out of the blue, a young Chinese couple came out of the woods and could speak some English. They said that he would take us 20 minutes and then we could catch a bus back to Yongshou. That sounded good to us.

Tom and the girls were on one raft, and Barb and I were on the other. After 10 minutes, the boat drivers pulled over to the side of the river. There were some vendors there selling food they cooked on the shore. We thought maybe they had some deal with them to bring tourists there. But no, they pulled over because a patrol boat was coming. We had to get off the raft and hide in the bushes! It was so bazaar! I was trying to stay calm and not freak out. I just kept thinking what our director of the school would say, or what the girls’ parents would say when they found out. How irresponsible!!!!

Finally, we got back on the rafts and headed back. We went longer than 30 minutes, and I was beginning to wonder what was going on. We were on the boats for 1 full hour. It was a very beautiful ride, but ruined for me because of the situation. Finally, we docked and the uncle made us pay what we felt was an unfair price. Again, we were stuck. Everyone knew the uncle. If we wanted a ride back, we had to pay. We ended up with the same motorcycle taxi woman and got caught in a traffic jam near the bridge. No one would budge. There were also a ton of middle schools walking on the road. It was a Sunday afternoon and they were just getting out of school or had something special going on…we don’t know which. At the jam, we paid and got out and walked the rest of the way which was only about 10 minutes to the bus.

We found a taxi van to take us back to the hotel that would only take 30 minutes for 80 yuan….forget the 50 minute crowded bus ride! We were so happy to get back to the hotel!

29-Sep-08

We took a taxi into town to book some tours hoping to get English speaking tours and arrangements for taxis. However, our taxi driver took us to the Chinese part of town and the tour agents spoke very little English. We booked 4 events.

The first was The Butterfly Spring. It was a neat cave with a n interesting story. There was a stalagmite formation of a butterfly and of a man and woman like they are dancing. It is a famous legend in China. The man, Liang, is poor and in love with Ju who is rich. Her father forbids them to be together. They die of broken hearts and get reincarnated as butterflies so they can be together. The cave was awesome! We also saw a waterfall and crossed a wooden suspension bridge. There was also China’s largest butterfly sanctuary there. The tour was in Chinese, but a girl who was studying in Guilin to be an English interpreter helped us to understand a little bit of what was being said. At the end of the tour was little dance and the classical music of the story that is famous in China. It was very nice. After the tour, the girl helped us get a taxi to take us to the next place. We assumed that because it was a hot tourist place and taxis drop people off, that it would be no problem to get a taxi afterwards….wrong! Most people bicycle there….not many foreigners were there…mostly Chinese. Finally, we got a taxi.

We went to the Jian Shan Buddhist Temple. We didn’t understand anything. There were a lot of frescos, but none of us knew any of the stories related to the pictures. Again, no one spoke English. The temple was old of course, but also somewhat rundown which surprised me. We were there about 30 minutes. Our driver was so nice. He waited for us and then took us to lunch at a decent restaurant down the road.

The Moon Hill Café was open and nice. There were a lot of Europeans there. The funny thing there was that after we ate, a waiter brought a live chicken to a nearby table full of Chinese people. They weighed it in front of them to decide if they wanted to buy it for lunch. We were glad were already done with our meal.

Next we walked about 10 minutes to The Dragon Cave. Again the tour was in Chinese. It was about 40 minutes and was interesting. We took 3 little boat rides inside the cave. It was huge. At the end we had our picture taken with colored stalagmites behind us….kind of cheesy!

Next we walked to The Long Men Buddha Water Cave where there were mud baths. (Tom stayed behind. He said he had enough mud baths when he was in the military.) It was totally different from what we expected. Men and women were mixed…..no real facilities. I bought a cheap 25 Yuan bathing suit that looked like what Olive Oil would wear. We got into a van which took us across the street and down the road to a center. We had to transfer to a bus and take a 30 min. ride to the mountain. They had more suits for sale and I bought a two piece that looked like it would fit better. It was totally Chinese with a little skirt bottom. We put our valuables in a locker. We put on some rubber sandals that cut into our feet and were hard to walk in. We got into a rickety boat and put on dirty helmets.

We had to duck into the very low entrance of the cave. It was a 5 min. boat ride and a 20 min. climb up slippery steps. We got to the mud area. There was a community change room that was just a sheet of heavy plastic on 4 sides. I had to change. The girls were smart and had worn their suits. We got in. It was more watery than we expected. It was cool and then we found it was muddier around the edges. There was a photographer there and 3 computers and printers. They took 5 pictures of us. The coolest part was that we could float. We could just lay back and relax and we floated. We stayed for about 40 minutes. There was one hose to rinse off the mud. We had to take turns. We were soooo filthy! I threw my lovely 2 piece swim suit away. Someone took one of my rubber sandals. We finally got anther one so I could walk back. We bought the pictures and hiked back. We got back to the depot and called for a taxi to pick us up.

We ordered dinner at 6:10 right when we got back to the hotel. We were to leave for a light show at 7:00 that the hotel had arranged for us. We were told in the morning to be there at 7:00. When we got back, they told us the taxi would leave at 6:40. We showered and wolfed down our food. The taxi took other guests and then came back for us.

We thought this was just a little local show. Wrong! It was a big tourist attraction. It cost 188 Yuan and there were a ton of tour busses. It was jammed packed with at least 1,000 people. We thought the boy from the hotel that came with us had the tickets. But again, everything is different here. We arrived at 7:20. We waited outside the gate for 10 minutes. Finally, the boy from the hotel talked to a guide that was taking in a group of people. We were to join her group. She acknowledged us and put us down on her paper. We went through the first main entrance gate and got counted with that group. A bunch of other people came through other turn-styles at the same time. We tried to follow behind our group, but got separated. No one came to look for us. We got to one point where everyone stopped, and all the guides were handing out the actual tickets to everyone in their group. We had no tickets and no guide. It was crazy!

We walked a little way further and found the other people from our hotel who had gone in 20 minutes ahead of us. The same thing had happened to them. We all wondered if we had been scammed. The event started at 7:40. We waited 30 minutes and finally got through on the cell phone to the girl at the hotel. She told us to wait 2 minutes and someone would be there. We waited and then decided to leave. We had already missed ½ the show. As we were leaving, the guide finally showed up and ran after us. We told her it was too late. We were done! We went back to the hotel. The hotel worker felt really bad. We were glad we didn’t have to pay. The other people went in and said the first part that we all missed was the best part. We are glad we didn’t stay.


30-Sep-08

Today we took the river taxi into Yangshou town. We walked around the tourist vendor shops for a couple of hours and all we bought was post cards.

We ate lunch at the “Hard Seat Café.” They had both Chinese and western food.

We rented 2 tandem bikes for 50 Yuan each. We tried to find the bike path that was marked out on a map. We missed a turn and rode about 30 min. along some pretty countryside. We found we were doing the path backwards. We didn’t even get to the “last” stop (our first stop). We rode for 1 hour and our “buns” were pretty sore, but we had a good time. The weather was perfect. We had a cloud cover and a nice breeze.

We took the river taxi back to the hotel. They held our bags for us and us come back to freshen up and hang out. We ordered snacks and dinner and relaxed until our taxi came at 7:30. The girl at the hotel asked us to stop in town to explain what happened the previous night with the light show. The guide tried to lie to save face. The manager believed us and the hotel did not have to pay. The girl was very grateful to us. Our flight to Chengdu left at 11:30 and we arrived at 1:00AM.

01-Oct-08

We got to the Hanyi Hotel in Chengdu about 2:00AM. It was a very nice Chinese hotel. Our pictures do not do it justice. We were very impressed. We were so tired and went straight to bed.

We met our tour guide, DaLong, and taxi drive, Mr. Jin, at 10:00 that morning. It was a nice van with light blue micro-fiber Disney seat covers. It was a two hour ride to LeShan to see the Giant Buddha.

First we stopped for lunch at a local Chinese restaurant. DaLong ordered for us. It was a “hole-in-the-wall” place and not to clean, but we just went with it. The girls had a lot of rice! Tom and I tried everything, and it was pretty good. Neither of us got sick, and we were glad about that.

It was a huge Buddhist temple area. The Giant Buddha took 90 years to build and finished in 803AD. The line to go down to the bottom of the Buddha was 4 hours long. We opted not to wait in the long line and just tour the grounds. It was beautiful and serene. We got to see the head of the Buddha and look down on his lap. It is 233 feet high. We were there about 3 hours.

You can check out the website for more details about this place at:

http://www.travelchinaguide.com/attraction/sichuan/leshan/buddha_statue.htm



When we got back to Chengdu, we had our driver drop us off at a mall near the hotel. The girls wanted western food and were happy to see a Pizza Hut. They also love to shop in western stores.

02-Oct-08

We met DaLong at 8:30 and took a 40 min. ride to get to the Panda Breeding Research Center in Chengdu. It was fabulous. We got to see some good close ups of a panda eating bamboo, 4 baby pandas, and 5 red pandas. The grounds were beautiful. The weather was great. We got some souvenirs.

We had lunch at a local noodle restaurant. Again, not real clean. The noodles were soup, not fried noodles like I thought. It was edible.

We took another 40 min. drive to get to the San Xian Dui Museum. It was a great archeological find for China of an ancient civilization that had human sacrificial mounds. The big things discovered were the jade, the bronze trees and masks. The shamans and kings were like gods. The grounds were beautiful. The artifacts were not that interesting to us. No one knows how most of the things were used for the rituals.

We saw an advertisement in a magazine for a Swenson’s Ice Cream Parlor and Restaurant. (The original is in San Francisco. I had been to the one in Saratoga.) We had our driver drop us off there so the girls could shop and we could eat dinner there. The ice cream hit the spot. All the milk products are imported from the states. I had the Coit Tower. The girls were happy to shop…8 Nike shops in 5 blocks! And they loved the food!

03-Oct-08

We were going to get up early to go to another temple, but we asked DaLong if we could skip that and sleep in. We went to Jin Li Street, a famous tourist shopping area. They advertised that it was a “civilized” shopping area. There were a lot of local wares. I bought a silk blouse. There was also all kinds of foods in little vendor booths. Tom tried some.

We then went to the Tibetan area of Chengdu. What struck us was the number of monks that were there and the number of shops that sold monk clothing. It was interesting.

Last we went by the QSI school. They have about 100 students. It was in an housing area. As we walked in, we were greeted by a snake! Tom helped to remove it.

That was our first tour of China. We had a great time!!!! What we discovered is that most of China is not set up for foreign visitors. They are still developing in this area.