Hello bamboo

Yangshuo

Our first stop in China was Yangshuo, a small (but very touristy) city in the Guilin area, famous for its stunning granite mountains with its peaks all over the region.

Typical scenery around Yangshuo, the Granite Mountains and the rice fields

Rice and corn (we guess) agriculture in the river banks with the granite peaks in the background

As the city stays in the middle of the Li and Yulong rivers there are a lot of trails where we could bike or hike on them. And definitely we did both…
As we were riding the bike or simply walking, every single local we met tried to sell us a river tour by a bamboo boat, so the usual welcome greeting here is simply “Hello bamboo”. Yesterday we tried to take a bamboo as far as Beijing but without success…

Li River view. You can see some bamboo boats on it…

Old man working on the fields. One of the only people to help with the directions and not trying to sell bamboo boat trip

Rice fields in Yangshuo

Ping’An, Dragon Backbone rice terraces
After a while in Yangshuo, we decided to take a 2 days trip to Ping’An, a short 160km trip that took us 5 buses and 6 hours to make it! But it was worth it…(despite the fact that our camera decided not to work in the secound day)
Ping’an is in the middle of the Dragon Backbone rice terraces, and the views of the rice terraces are very impressive

The rice terraces

In addition to the terraces, the village itself, with the small alleys and picturesque houses made us forget the long bus journey fast (well, beer and local wine helped a lot)

Ping’An small alleys

The rice terraces, view from our room window

Ping’An is also house of the Zhuang minority with their local dresses and costumes

Now we are back in in Yangshuo, and Shiri is doing a cooking course.... I'll love the meals when we will be back home