It's day two in Yangshuo, the perfect base from which to explore this area of stunning limestone scenery. Yesterday I hired a bike and pedalled round the countryside, today I took a boat trip.I won't bother describing the views since I've hopefully managed to post photos.
One interesting thing about Yangshuo (and probably most tourist spots in China) is that unlike most other developing countries I've visited where the local population seem to show little interest in their own sites, here foreigners are completely outnumbered by chinese tourists. For instance, on the boat trip today there was a guy dressed in full army costume who at first I thought might be keeping an eye on us. In fact he was obviously here for sightseeing and insisted on being photographed in front of every stunning vista (which as you can imagine there are a lot of).
One side effect of this is that although I clearly do pass for chinese, I'm usually viewed as a chinese tourist. So I still get accosted by the touts only they speak to me in chinese. I have to shake my head and mutter that I only speak english, which either gets a bemused look of incomprehension or bouts of hysterical laughter.
I'm eating very well so far in china. No problem being veggie and lots of tasty chinese food. The communal meals served here at the Culture House are particularly yummy. Of course, there are plenty of decidedly non-veggie options for those so inclined. On a menu today I spotted crispy baby sparrow, pigs brain soup (good for the memory apparently), braised duck tongues, fried bee larva or pigs trotters in beef blood. And this was at a restaurant westernised enough to have an english menu. Goodness knows what the really authentical places are like!
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