10-12th August 2009
YANGSHOU: RAFTING AND OTHER ADVENTURES
(10th)
Well, it was bound to happen but trust China to make it happen in our favourite place so far. On the 10th, we were holed up in our room with food poisoning. We ate at a restaurant on West St which was full of westerners and locals alike, so we assumed we were safe. Wrong. I woke up the following day feeling like I had been hit by a car, with hot sweats… Lizzie was just as bad.
We were frantic; worried we had swine flu due to contact with the flood of westerners. We phoned home asking for NHS advice and ruminated over the possibility of being kept in quarantine in China! The lovely girls on reception brought us up plain wholemeal bread, water and coke, which was about all we could manage.
It is pretty dull and miserable being ill, holed up in a hostel room – especially when you have waited for months to come to China! In order to waste some time, I read aloud to Lizzie. We rad my book To the edge of the sky by Anhua Goa. The book covers, first hand, the details of Mao’s crazy dictatorship regime, which seemed quite appropriate being in China.
Lizzie maintained interest for 3 hours, which is pretty good going! We then attempted to watch a China DVD rip-off but the translations were so terribly distracting that we ended up just going to sleep.
(11th)
We woke up feeling much better, but still a little delicate. The plans we had for bike riding around the countryside with our guide were shelved for a day of local sightseeing and interwebbing. We found a lovely little café over the road from our hostel which served ice cream (for Lizzie) and mint tea (for me). We spent hours in the lovely air conditioning chatting to people online and reading magazines.
That evening we went to watch a famous local play performed on the river called The Impressions of Liu Sanjie. The Director, Zhang Yimou created House of Flying Daggers. It is performed by over 600 locals, of whom most are farmers and fisherman from the surrounding villages. Up to 2,000 people pay to watch the play every single night.
The auditorium is housed on the natural islands of the river. The sound equipment cannot be seen because it is in harmony with the environment. The valleys, the hills, the cool breeze and the running streams are all elements contributing to the three-dimensional sound effect. The concept is to use nature as an integral part of its performance; hence its name – ‘Human’s Masterpiece Cooperated with the God’.
The story is about a lady called Liu SanJie who lived in the city of Liuzhou (2 hours from Guilin) where she worked in the fields. Liu Sanjie was well-known in Liuzhou for her great singing voice. She would always sing while she worked in the fields. Most of her songs were about the repression felt by her and the farmers from the local landlords who over taxed them. She had to leave Liuzhou for her own safety and came to Yangshuo on a bamboo raft and settled here.
Yangshuo’s farmers also had problems with their landlord and Liu Sanjie took up singing against them. The local landlord had her kidnapped, but she escaped after the local farmers staged an uprising against the landlord.
The locals agreed with the landlord that they did not have to pay taxes if they could sing better than the landlord, something which they always did. Then under the Big Banyan tree, Liu Sanjie tossed her love ball to her loved one, which he accepted and they lived happily ever later.
The Impressions of Liu Sanjie was an absolutely dazzling performance and I would thoroughly recommend it. Despite the fact that we had no prior knowledge of the story line (and subsequently, little understanding of what was going on throughout the play) the visual display was beyond outstanding. To be honest, I am glad I came to China, just so I was able see it.
After the play, Lizzie was hungry and wanted some ‘street seller’ food, as a quick bite to eat. For some bizarre reason I did not question this, despite the fact we had both had food poisoning the previous day. Stupidly, I even joined in with the meaty skewers! When they brought over our food, it tasted like cat. I brought up my concerns about post-poisoning-street-seller-delights to Lizzie, who quickly went off the whole idea and we went home to bed.
(12th)
Our last day in Yangshuo. We decided to go river rafting and hot air ballooning for our final activities. I ordered ‘hash browns’ for breakfast, which resulted in a plate of mash potato. Luckily, I am rather fond of mash potato so all was good.
Rafting was first and we were very excited. On arrival at the river, we were offered China-style-water-pistols. We assumed this was going to be a fun and sociable event. Our raft consisted of 2 wicker chairs strapped to the long bamboo base. Out driver turned out to be quite drunk, as seems to be the norm when in charge of any kind of vehicle in China. It ended up being a wetter, messier version of punting a la Cambridge.
The water pistols came in very handy and we absolutely soaked everyone we passed, whether they had water pistols or not. Even those who were sleeping in their chairs, unsuspecting children or old people taking in the scenery – they all got drenched. We were soaking in no time due to counter attacks from the Chinese. It was hilarious.
We were amazed how quiet all the Chinese were on their rafts, especially when they are so noisy on land. We stirred things up a bit and got told off several times by Chinese people who were calmly taking in the scenery. Why give people super soakers if it is not a wet and wild event? We made red Indian noises to signal our approach and then soaked everyone in our reach.
Our ‘driver’ was thrilled to have such lively passengers aboard his vessel. On demand he splashed all of our rivals with his big bamboo ‘punting pole’. Such behaviour was rewarded considerably with bottles of beer, which we bought for him.
One particular couple got a really good drenching, to the point where I was just hurling water at them from cupped hands directly from the river. Lizzie aimed for the girl’s head with her dual pistols. The girl kept trying to ask us to stop, but couldn’t speak due to mouthfuls of river water. Her boyfriend found it hilarious, so seeing this as consent; we were unrelenting until we passed them.
A pair of young Chinese boys kept trying to hide from us but by the end they were soaked through and had fully got in to the spirit of things.
Sodden, we went back to the hostel and got changed for our hot air balloon trip. We spent quite some time driving around the countryside, looking for the balloon. The people were not sure where it had landed, in hindsight; this was a warning….
We were to share the balloon with a Chinese couple and their young child. We climbed in to the basket and were almost instantly burned alive when the driver blasted on the fire! I suppose it should be obvious how hot air ballooning is, what with the name being a bit of a give away.
But it is literally like having an open furnace, 2 feet above your head, with flames shooting out. The sweat was rolling off us. Not quite the glamorous hot air ride we had envisaged but good fun none the less.
We floated above Yangshuo at sunset. The driver pointed out the auditorium where we had watched The Impressions of Liu Sanjie the night before and then he intentionally pretended to land in the river.
After an hour, we landed softly in a corn field, where the Chinese family wisely hopped out and ran off. The driver asked Lizzie and I to stay in or he would float away. Never listen to a Chinaman in a hot air balloon. We stayed in the basket and floated away anyway while the ballon man’s friends were trying to pull us back down with the ropes. Unsuccessful. This resulted in our first crash landing in a water filled paddy field and then the second on some rocky ground, narrowly missing a stabby forest of trees , where we landed on our side and had to crawl out of the basket.
Our day was excellent and the perfect end to our stay in mainland China. We are now on the sleeper bus to Guangzhou! Goodbye Yangshuo, thank you for showing us the lighter side of China!
Stayed: Bamboo House Hotel, No.23 Guihua Road, West St, Yangshuo County
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