Yangshuo Mountain Retreat

After many long days touring and travelling, our group checked in to a mountain retreat and I must say, the stay was incredible. But, before jumping in to that, I’ll give you another China observation so those that don’t want to read the travel log can sign off. We’ve now ridden a couple bullet trains, which are very comfortable. Obviously, the Chinese have a smart phone fetish like we do, and so everyone is on theirs. Many are watching movies or tv shows; but, many of them don’t use earbuds! They just crank up the volume and so all surrounding seats can hear their show… and no one seems to care! Combine that with the people carrying on loud conversations on their phones, and it makes for a noisy train.

Enough with that; let’s take it from where we left off and the hotel in Guilin…

After dinner our entire family went on another walk down by the lake, this time at night while it was all lit up. The lights were spectacular as there are several bridges that extend out in to the lake that we walked across. As is typical for China, there were groups of older ladies dancing (we now know they are referred to as the “bouncing grannies”) and people out doing other activities. We walked through a Harry Potter-like forest of petrified rocks all lit up with different colored lights, passed by the glass bridge, which is completely lit with changing colors (and includes offers to take pictures in front of), and walked by many food vendors and restaurants. The kids originally weren’t excited about going on a walk, but by the end of it they were glad they went. Some of the other folks in our group went out for a city tour and to watch the Cormorant birds (the ones that have their necks tied up and are trained to fish) and said they had a wonderful city tour, also.

Getting up in the morning and checking out of the hotel, we boarded a bus and headed down to the docks of the Li River, where passenger boats were waiting to take us down river to Yangshuo. This is a small community, maybe 300,000, primarily built around tourism. The geography of the area is spectacular and you have likely seen pictures and images of these mountains. They are known as “finger mountains” and they push sharply up all around the landscape. The area is a sub-tropical climate and so everything is green and lush, reminding me of Hawaii. The mountains are combination of rock sides and dark green foliage and using your imagination, you can see all sorts of pictures in the faces of the hills. The weather was rainy and as we made our way down the river, the mountains had a magical feel, with low clouds swirling all around them and constantly changing what was exposed and not exposed. We spent almost 4 hours cruising down the river, playing games, eating lunch, and drinking beer, enjoying the sites while under the protection of cover.

Coming into port at Yangshou, the dock was nothing more than some rock steps. About 20 of these ferries, carrying approximately 100 people each, were unloading their passengers on these rock outcroppings. The rain was still coming down pretty hard and the steps were slippery. I saw a few people lose their footing, but no one went in the river or injured themselves, so I guess that’s good enough. One guy in our group, John, coined the phrase “China rules” for anything we saw that clearly wasn’t safe or up to code. China rules at the dock were that as long as most of the people make it up the steps to the waiting vendors, we’re good.

Our group made it up the stairs without incident and then, just like checking out at Best Buy, we had to snake our way through aisles of vendors hawking their wares. Cherry was our city guide for Guilin and Yangshou. She explained that most Chinese like to stay in the town where there is a lot of activity and more to do; trhey like the noise and activity. Our hotel, the Yangshou Mountain Retreat, was about 30 minutes outside of the town, and is too quiet for them and so they usually don’t stay there. To us, it sounded perfect.

The retreat is owned by an American and run by Chinese who speak English, so it is relatively easy to just relax. The complex has a few small buildings and has a sort of rustic, family feeling. The restaurant has a small bar area with a couple low tables, and then 4 or 5 tables in the main area. It is always open to come sit and relax and there was even a local kitty that would keep us company. Our rooms on the second floor looked over the river and out across several sets of beautiful mountains. These mountains also had a fog shrouding their bases and our first order of business after checking in was to sit on our porch and enjoy a cup of tea, watching the river, and looking out at the mysterious mountains. We spent a lot of the time during this portion of the trip thinking about our dear friend Vanessa, as her memorial service was going on at the same time in Anchorage, and the landscape was fitting of her second home in Hawaii. The second order of business was a massage. Yep, we were in full on vacation mode at this point. 2 ladies came to the retreat from town, came in to our room, and gave us a shoulder, back, and foot massage as we sat and listened to the river rushing by and felt cool air blow over us from the fan in the room. It was wonderful. Chinese foot massage is an art, as they trace many of the nerves to places in the foot. Regardless of whether they’re right or not, it felt great.

About 5pm we started happy hour. Two of the couples had brought wine on the trip and they brought a couple bottles out to share. The retreat also has a wine expert on staff, and so there were several options for purchase including bottles from Washington and Italy (not normal in China) so we had some good wine, and of course beer, at our happy hour. We then enjoyed a dinner downstairs in the restaurant which, even though we all ordered separately, still felt like a big family all eating together.

The next day we went in to town for a little bit of shopping and a cooking class. Ms. Jenny, the instructor, took us upstairs to her school where we learned to cook Kung Pao chicken, eggplant stir fry, and wonton dumplings. All the adults and kids had their own station and made their own lunch. Everyone did great, but once the gas burners came on and we had to start cooking, things got interesting. Five of the girls were lined up next to each other and the cooking was fast and furious. At one point, one of the girls had their wok oil catch on fire, which everyone except Ms. Jenny got excited about. All in all, there were only a couple minor burns from spattered oil and everyone had dishes they could eat for lunch, which we did. We all ate our own creations, amazed at how different they tasted from each other even though we had all of the same ingredients.

On the way home we stopped by an old farm house for a short tour, and then back to the retreat for another happy hour and our last dinner together. After this, all the families split up, most of us to complete our orphanage visits and for most folks, head home. It was sad to say goodbye to all the families. I think tours like this are a bit of a crapshoot, but everyone was very easy to get along with and travel with. The kids got along fabulously and the girls could be best friends if they all lived nearby. It made the trip a wonderful journey, but parting sad. On the bright side, I’m looking forward to just some time as a family.

Today we take a bus to Guilin, about 90 minutes, and catch a bullet train to Guangzhou. Once there, we meet our guide, Sarah, and take a 5 hour drive to Jenna’s hometown, Huazhou. We will spend the day there tomorrow, stay one more night, and then drive back to Guangzhou.

The awesome tour group all together

The kids with our wonderful guide, Michael.

The view from our balcony; how could we not be at peace here???