Yangshuo
So the New Year was approaching, a Big One, thanks to all the hype around a certain bug that had been built in to the world's computer systems. "Let's go to Yangshuo!", somebody said, and so a bunch of us did.
So, an overnight train to Guilin, then a bus out to Yangshuo, all of which was adventure enough. On arrival in Yangshuo accommodation was found.
Yangshuo had been noticed by Lonely Planet some time before I had arrived in China, so had settled from edgy, exciting little backpacker destination to established tourist town. This wasn't all bad - it had been an intense few months in Changsha, and a bit of time out was needed. I remember very few of the people there for that particular New Year being actual tourists, and most of them being there for similar reasons to me.
Back then, at least, all of the tourist activity was concentrated along West Street. West Street ran essentially the length of the town from the highway down to the riverbank, along the western edge of the town. At the highway end it was quite broad, but a short way along it suddenly narrowed. It was lined with traditional buildings, the ground floors being cafes and souvenir shops aimed at "Western backpackers", with many of the cafes also serving as guesthouses. There were also many hotels along or very close to West Street. Altogether a nice street on which to take a break from the world.
But West Street was not big enough to account for a whole holiday, even just a long weekend, and you'd be a bloody fool to limit your time there to only what West Street had to offer.
For one thing, look up to the highway end of West Street and there, at the end of the street, is a honking great mountain just sitting there. Part way down West Street was a wee temple, and behind that was another honking great mountain just sitting there. Go down to the river bank, look across the river, up the river, down the river, all these immense limestone pillars planted in the landscape as if they were the stubble left after a giant harvested his crop.
You know those traditional Chinese landscape paintings featuring impossibly vertical mountains with wee temples clinging to their sides, and rivers twisting between the mountains? The landscape around the Guilin area is those paintings come to life, and around Yangshuo it is particularly intense.
And there was plenty to do in this magical landscape. One quite fun afternoon on this first trip was spent on a guided bicycle tour through the countryside. And sure, you read "guided" and immediately think of the worst aspect of tourism, but this was a low-key, informal ride along rural roads, down paths through paddy fields, into village markets, just generally getting some decent fresh air and exercise while getting a glimpse of a part of the world that one would not otherwise be consciously aware of. Also, saw a wild snake on that trip - that was a pretty cool experience for a young lad who'd grown up on these entirely snake-free isles.
I can't remember if it was this first trip to Yangshuo or the next, but there was a short cruise along the river watching - well, watching the scenery of course, the scenery is amazing - but also watching an old guy cormorant fishing. So there was this old fisherman on a bamboo raft with a small flock of cormorants. A cormorant would dive under the water, catch a fish, and pop back up. The old guy would grab the cormorant around the neck then extract the fish before the cormorant could swallow it. This struck me as being an eminently sensible way to go fishing - no fussing around with bait and hooks then sitting waiting for hours while nothing happens. Get some tame cormorants, let them do the hard work while you cruise along the river on your raft, the birds know they've got a steady supply of food and a safe place to sleep, and you get efficiently caught fish.
My second trip to Yangshuo was for the May Day break in 2000. There were two big things that happened on that trip. The first is that I climbed to the top of Moon Hill. The second was my introduction to just how brutal a southern Chinese summer can be.
Moon Hill is one of the myriad karst mountains that dot the landscape in that part of the world, a comfortable bike ride from Yangshuo. It is a large thumb-shaped limestone column with a hole running through it near the top - you can see clear through the mountain to the scenery on the other side. The climb to the hole was easy enough, though a bit steep, and very hot thanks to the weather. The hole doesn't provide much shade, though it did have rainwater from a couple of days prior filtering through the limestone and dripping on to whoever happened to walk through the hole. From there to the very top, the peak of the mountain above the hole, was a wee bit steeper and scarier, but I was young and determined to go all the way. The view was, well -- remember the traditional Chinese landscape paintings of impossibly vertical mountains with rivers winding between them? That, in real life, but thousands of them in 3D in every direction you looked.
The summer heat that year came on on May Day. April 30 was comfortably warm. May 1 was ferociously hot. One afternoon I was walking down West Street with some friends and the skies opened. We had to shelter under the verandah of a cafe and watch as West Street went from dry cobblestones to ankle-deep stream in what felt like seconds. And a few minutes later the rain cleared and we were straight back to ferocious heat.
Probably the best thing I did in Yangshuo was to simply walk away from West Street, walk along the river bank and up and down roads in the ordinary part of town - which was, of course, most of it. It always felt like a very relaxed, laid-back little town, and very, very comfortable. As good as West Street was, it was still very much a tourist street, and therefore had that slightly unreal feel to it that you get in tourist-oriented districts. Walking away from West Street helped ground all of that back in reality.
What was the best of all about Yangshuo back then? It's terribly cliched, but it was the people. The getting there was a bit different, but once you were there, the people were the opposite of what you'd expect of a tourist-oriented town. There was no hard sell, no pressure, nobody getting in your face telling you how you had to spend all your money on some shitty ride. There were just relaxed, easy-going, welcoming people. And that is what made Yangshuo such a great little place to take a short break from the world.