Guilin and Yangshuo, China

For Fall break of 2003 we went to Guilin and Yangshuo, China. There were about 15 of us in all. At the airport in China some guy offered to "book" a hotel for us when we arrived and he needed the money up front. No doubt that it was a scam but we gave him our name anyway and he said someone would meet us when we got there. To our surprise when we got to Guilin, someone was there but that hotel wouldn't let foreigners stay there so we were stuck wondering the streets in the wee hours of the morning trying to find a place to sleep. We eventually did and for a total of about $3 US dollars....let's just say we got what we paid for! The beds were seriously plywood with a sheet.

We then took a 4 hour boat ride to Yangshuo and half way through we stopped to have lunch at an outdoor restaurant. This is where we were introduced to our first "squatters"! Be thankful someone invented the western toilet! The boat ride was a lot of fun, the scenery was amazing and there were tons of water buffalo.

In Yangshuo we stayed in the backpackers area and had a blast. The food was so good! You could order anything you wanted even if it wasn't on the menu. In fact some of the menu items were dog, cat, rat, snake, etc. so we didn't want any of that anyway! We did see a guy cut open a snake and drink straight from it...that may have been the most disgusting thing I have ever seen.
We bought some beautiful table cloths, paintings and North"fake" jackets for $15 thanks to the good bargaining by Heather! The local people loved to get their picture taken with us. I don't think they had seen many white people. They would nonchalantly pose with us while their friends quickly took pictures so finally Jeff just started posing with them.
We also went on some day trips with a guide that we hired. First we went to Butterfly Cave which was a bust. Everything seemed extremely fake but we were told it was 100% all natural (even the plaster peeling off the walls). Our guide was not too happy with us because we were sort of poking fun at the place.
Then we took a bike ride to Moon Hill which was so amazing. Our guide said we went too slow. We blamed it on the bikes but she traded us and she still went faster! Then we took tiny row boats into another cave that had a waterfall inside and a mudpit. We all took mud baths and got really messy!
Another adventure was going out at night and watching the commorants (a type of bird) fish. Their necks were tied off so fish could not go down and the fisherman would empty out their mouths into a bucket. After every mouth-full they would get a treat and then go back in the water for more. It was pretty neat to watch.
Guilin was very beautiful. The landscape was amazing. The mountains seemed to just pop up out of the rice fields.