Golden Week in Yangshuo, China

There are two "Golden Weeks" in the mainland of the People's Republic of China.  They are national holidays where ALL of China has those days off.

In 2010 we stayed in Beijing and enjoyed the lovely weather and were tourists in our new city.  In 2011 we went to Halong Bay in Vietnam and Angkor Wat in Cambodia.  This year we were even MORE adventurous.  We decided to travel IN China with a hundred million plus Chinese!   This had the potential to go very wrong....

We had two hours of sitting in HORRIBLE traffic one night but that was the only blemish on a wonderful week.  It could have been like this...

or this....

but thankfully it was like this....

We flew into Guilin on September 30th.  After a one hour taxi ride, we arrived at our "Home away from Home", The Giggling Tree guesthouse. The picture above was our view every day.  It is in the rural area of Yangshuo so the girls got to see crops, farm animals and the back breaking work of farming.  We, of course, did not send them into the fields to work.  They enjoyed hikes, bikes and just playing around with the other children in the guesthouse.

Walking around the area

The Giggling Tree is behind Patrick and the girls

Walking distance to the Yulong River

We loved the Giggling Tree

On the first day we biked for an hour and a half to the Dragon Bridge.  We then rented 2 bamboo rafts and floated down the Yulong River.  It was a wonderful way to get down the river where our bikes were waiting for us.

 

View from atop the Dragon Bridge

 On the 2nd day, we biked to Moon Hill and back.  Moon Hill was 800 steps to the top and the same coming back down.  With the biking and hiking, we were exhausted.

The Top of Moon Hill

From the Bottom, looking up at Moon Hill

The next day we took a break from the biking and did a hike in the area.  It was HOT!  The sun was beating down on us but it was our last day with clear blue skies.

 And this was our view at dinner time every night...

On the 4th day we were driven to Yangde and rented a bamboo raft to take us down the Li River to Xing Ping.  It was a hazy day and the boat was very loud but I could see it would have been beautiful with blue skies.

Waiting for our boat in Yangde

We ended the boat trip in XingPing, an ancient village where the art on the 20RMB note was
painted/drawn.

This is not our picture but it shows it better than ours below

Our sky not nearly as blue....

What an artsy picture!

She's not smoking...just a Popsicle stick!

On our final full day, we biked the same trail to Moon Hill and went into the Underground Caves.  The Chinese jazzed the natural beauty up with some neon lights.  We brought our swim suits but chickened out in the end.  Just couldn't get into the mud bath....same water as THOUSANDS of Chinese had been in for the last week....not going to happen....

This was one of our most active, fun and relaxing trips yet.  We would highly recommend visiting Yanshuo and the Giggling Tree.

Happy Dance at the Moon Gate