I'm back from Yang Shuo..Continued

So in Fu Li, they have a local market that I just had to check out.
It was similar to the Fear Factor market in my hometown.



Fresh chicken in a basket.


Picking out dinner.


Bundled up tight.

Another local market. This one had clothes and other goods.


Fu Li is supposed to be a great little town. I prefer great little villages.
This place really didn't have too much to offer.


I was trying to be inconspicuous taking this picture...she saw me taking it and wanted 3 yuan.
My story is," I was trying to take a picture of the mountain and she walked into my view."


About the same time I kept running into this gal on a bicycle.
Her name is Denise.
She teaches English in the Hunan province about 7 hours away.
We both had the same idea, hang out in Yang Shuo for a couple of weeks.
She had been backpacking through China for a month and a half before coming to Yang Shuo.
We ended up hanging out together for the rest of our vacation.


This other gal is Denise also. She works at a local bar/restaurant.
I met Denise #2 last December when Gloria and I were here.
Denise #2 invited Denise #1 and myself to her hometown, Xing Ping. I had been there before in December. This is a great little village.

First we stopped by her house for tea.
That's not a kiddie chair.
Everybody sits on these small chairs here in China.


Xing Ping has these great old streets!




We made our way down to the river eventually.
Denise had to try the fried taro on a stick.







Public toilet.



Later on that night we had dinner at a place called "Cloud 9".
Great food and a great view of the city.
During dinner I went upstairs to use the bathroom and saw a cooking class on the roof.
I asked the woman teaching the class about the cost and then brought Denise up to check it out.
We signed up for a class.
I've got pictures of that later.




Now Denise didn't know you could rent scooters and had never even been on one.
But she liked the idea. So the next day we rented a couple and she was hooked from there on.
Almost every day she would say"Let's rent some scooters!"
It was a good way to get around. And pretty cheap, less than $4 for the day.


She turned out to be a natural.



We kicked around from village to village.


Meeting the locals.

No KFC in this village.


Anybody who knows me, knows I love to to go off road.


We took a break and grabbed some oranges to snack on.


No pork today.






We found this cave out in the sticks. It's used as a stall for sheep.




Water break.

We ran into a few foreigners along the way.
I think she was from Sweden.





The next day we went to a place called "Moon Hill".
This was a great hike!
You can see the moon shape in the middle of the hill.
We actually climbed to the very top of the hill...above the moon.


We had been riding quite a while and our scooters were getting low on juice, so we found a resturaunt that let us charge while we ate.

After lunch we made our way up the hill.
Denise had been up here before and was willing to make the trek up the hill again.
It took about 45 minutes to get th the moon.



Then we were at the top...well almost.


This nice little old lady was waiting for us at the top.
She had water and postcards for anyone who needed them.


Such a nice, friendly lady.


Her sales technique worked...Denise bought some postcards.


I was just ther for the view.
The nice little old lady also told us that we could get to the very top of the hill.
On top of Moon Hill.
But you needed to part Billy goat to get there.


Another 20 minutes and we were on top of the world (or moon).


There were some clouds rolling in but the view was still incredable.




The trip down was a bit trickier than the trip up.


That night, we hung out with these folks for a while before calling it a day.


The next day the clouds were still lingering so we decided not to rent scooters and to just hang out around town.
There was a temple beside the river that I didn't get a chance to check out last time I was in town, so we walked around there for a while.


Give money and receive money.
That's my guess?



A bit of Chinglish.


They had a place set up to make prints on paper.


And fans.
Denise bought a few fans for gifts for friends...but not here.


A cloudy crappy day but we made the best of it.


We decided to take a bamboo raft across the river and walk along the shore.


I found this great place!
Cheap rent.
Great view of the river.
And you could even get HBO!


I bet Denise 100 yuan she couldn't catch a chicken.
She didn't catch one, but it was almost worth 100 kwi just to watch her chasing them around.

Fishing birds, taking a rest.


This is the temple we were just at.

Later that evening we ended up at a place called"Monkey Jane's Rooftop Bar".
It was Valentine's day and we saw a sign on the main street saying something like "Anti-Valentines Day Party".


Most of these guys are from Canada.
And most of them are teaching English in China, just like Denise and myself.
It should be called "Monkey Jane's Rooftop Teachers Lounge".


Next day...scooters again.
We saw a place on the map that we hadn't hit yet.
Dragon Bridge.
It just sounds exciting!!!
But it wasn't.
Just a very old bridge in a very old village.


None the less we had a good time.
You know me...I just LOVE these old villages.






Anywhere near the river, people would shout out"Hello, Bamboo Boat?"
That was the only English they knew.
That was the main source of income for most of these little villages.





To be continued...

Jim