Yangshuo County

We have spent an amazing 3 days In Yangshuo and Guilin. Our hostel in Yangshuo had really nice staff who showed us where to get the local Guilin noodles for 80p and who helped create a festive atmosphere (through beer pong and shots of rice wine infused with dead snakes) despite it being low season. One of them, Feng, took us to the top of the tallest hill in Yangshuo town where we got an amazing view of sunset over the rolling Karst scenery.

We also went on a cycling trip along the Yulong river, riding through beautiful farmland and countless Karst hills, followed by a trip on a bamboo raft owned by what we could only describe as the Chinese two Ronnies.

The following day we scaled Baozhai hill in Xingping which was exhausting but gave us breathtaking vistas over a bend in the Li River.

On Thursday we travelled to Guilin, a larger city that had been more clearly overrun by Chinese tourists and spent a day exploring the lakes that dotted the city at a more leisurely pace, as we knew that on Friday we would embark on our epic 20 hour hard sleeper train journey to Kunming...Read more