Leaving China - Blogabond

It occurred to me after our cycle trip that, to my surprise, the only bicycles I had seen in China were those for hire to tourists. What happened to that 1 billion bicycles in China, or whatever the silly song says?

In the evening, after our cycle trip, we found a pub / restaurant that has a microbrewery and sampled some of their beer, which was a definite improvement on the very boring local beer we were becoming used to, although we did have to put up with being terrorised by a naughty Chinese child. Chinese children seem very cute on the whole, but they also seem very badly behaved. We reckon it's down to the one child policy: an entire nation of only children! Can you imagine?

It was cold on the river

The next day, our last day in Yangshuo, we felt we should do a bit more sight-seeing, so we went on a boat ride down the Li River, which many of the restaurants boast they get their fish from. Unfortunately the weather was terrible: very cold and to make matters worse the cloud was almost down to ground level so we could hardly see any of the gorgeous scenery we were on the trip for. We had booked a two hour trip, but after about 10 minutes Joanne was saying "how much longer is it?".

Scenery on the boat trip

What we could see of the scenery was very nice, and I suppose it took on a certain moody quality that was familiar fro Scotland. About half-way through our time we stopped of at this bizarre little collection of stalls and assorted characters, in quite a strange location on the bank of the river, all trying to extract money from the tourists. I'm not sure what they all wanted money for, but I think the bird man charged money to let you hold the stick which the birds feet seemed to be nailed to (pining for the fjords, I expect), and I suppose the ox man let you sit on his beast. I think the guy with the motorbike was just washing it, but who knows?

The food stall

Naturally we bought some food from the kebab lady, but declined all other offers, even the art curios. After a freezing trip, during which we saw very little, we managed to navigate our way to the correct bus and get back to Yangshuo. It being our last night, it was my responsibility to try the local speciality, "Beer Fish".

Beer fish

I'm not sure what attracted me to the dish, but I felt it was my duty. I'd been planning to have it since we arrived there, but it costs about twice what any other dish costs, so I had put it off until we'd found somewhere that charges only 45 Yuan instead of the usual minimum 60 Yuan. Lucy's place it was -- and it was actually delicious. It was only afterwards that I read that, due to the large volume of traffic on it, the Li River (where the fish allegedly came from) is very polluted, and not the sort of place you want to be fishing!

The next day we got the second bus to Nanning (8am seemed a little bit too early), where we would be able to link to Hanoi, so our last day in China! (Until June)

written by

The Happy Couple on January 28, 2009 from Yangshuo, China

from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon

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6 million bicycles in Beijing

written by Rosalyn on February 5, 2009

NEVER MIND THE BICYCLES, I RESENT THE IMPLICATION ONLY CHILDREN ARE SOCIPATHS!! ooops, better take the caps off.

written by dan meikle on February 23, 2009

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