Day 254: Where be dragons?

A few doors up from our hotel is a place where you can hire bikes – riding around the local area is one of the most popular activities for visitors to Yangshuo. Much to our shame we've never taught Zoe to ride a bike and Sarah I still pretty shaky, so we hired a pair of tandems. Rather conveniently, our hotel is located on the road out of town, so we didn't have to ride through the chaos of Yangshuo to get to the calm of the countryside.

The day started out fairly overcast, but it was still pretty warm and very humid. Our destination for the day was the so-called Dragon Bridge over the Yulong river, supposedly a roughly 21-kilometre round trip, and as we cycled out of town, there were some helpful signposts to guide us. The roads were mercifully flat and we made good progress. It's obviously rice-planting time as the paddy fields were alive with farmers bending over and rhythmically inserting little green seedlings into the mud.

Before long, we reached a section of the river that's used as the embarkation point for a different sort of bamboo boat to the one we took down the Li River. These smaller, two-person boats were actually made of bamboo and were poled along, rather than having motors. They sat quite low in the water and we were amused to see that many of the passengers had their feet in plastic bags to keep their shoes dry. The girls also watched as men tried to catch the little crayfish that live in the grass-choked channels that run down to the river.

By now the signposts had disappeared, and we flailed around for a while trying to figure out where to go next, but eventually rejoined the road and pedalled on. The sun now broke through the clouds and we were soon drenched in sweat. There are several weirs on the river along here and on each we saw a little 'escalator' up which the bamboo boats could ride as they progressed upstream.

With no map and no signposts, we made several wrong turns, and we ended up having to backtrack several times. We asked for directions a few times, but no-one spoke English so we just stayed lost, taking each likely-looking turn and riding until it as clear we were going the wrong way and then turning back. At one point, the track got more and more narrow until it became too precarious to ride on, and we all had to climb off and push the bikes. It soon widened out again and before long we were riding on something more akin to a road again.

The one saving grace in all of this was the scenery, which was properly stunning. In addition to the drama of the limestone hills, we were utterly charmed by the little rural villages we rode through, where the locals would all look in amazement at the crazy white folks pedalling along and then break into huge smiles when we said, 'Ni hao (hello)' to them. 

Riding through one of these villages we came to a complete dead end. This was the final straw and we turned the bikes around and started riding back to Yangshuo. But then, as we rode back, we saw some buses driving down a road that ran perpendicular to ours, so we followed them down to where they had stopped in a big, muddy car park, beside which stood some a number of stalls selling food and trinkets. We dismounted and locked the bikes up and then followed the bus passengers into a little pathway through the stalls and there it was, the mythical Dragon Bridge!

A French couple had reached the bridge just before us, and as we climbed up, they were standing taking photos of each other. We struck up a conversation with them, comparing tales of getting lost, and they pulled out a map and showed us the path that lay on the other side of the bridge, which looked significantly less complicated than the roundabout route that we had to taken to get there.

When we crossed over to the other side, we found a couple of food stalls and on closer inspection we discovered that one of them specialised in stir-fried rice noodles – perhaps my all-time favourite Chinese dish, but one that we hadn't seen anywhere in China up until now. Of course there wasn't a menu, nor did those manning the stall speak English, but by pointing at the ingredients arrayed around the stall ingredients I managed to construct a dish that was then cooked up for us. And oh my, was it good. It had started to rain lightly as we arrived in the car park, and as we ate, the heavens opened up and we were soon looking out on a proper torrential downpour, complete with thunder and lightning. We weren't going anywhere in a hurry, so we sat on our little stools at the little table under a big, blue tarpaulin and played cards. 

After some time, the rain began to ease off, so Kate and I went back to the car park to retrieve the bikes and then we mounted up and rode off. The track on this side of the river was indeed much better organised and we made quick progress, asking everyone we passed if this was the way to Yangshuo, just to be sure. However, we hadn't been riding for long before the rain started to get heavier again. We rode on for a bit longer but then the precipitation level went up another few notches and we were forced to retreat under a shelter next to a little shop. We were joined by a Chinese tourist who was riding a snazzy mountain bike around the area and we struck up a stilted conversation with him, aided by Google translate on his smart phone.

Thankfully we managed to make it back to the hotel without getting lost and we dropped off the bikes, had quick, cold showers and changed our clothes and then headed out in our thongs/flip-flops. We had read that there was a night market in town, and got directions to it from the woman at reception, so our plan was to go there for dinner tonight. It was still raining as we walked to where we thought the market should be, but unfortunately, we found not a trace of it. The rain was making the pavement incredibly slippery, and our inappropriate footwear made things even more precarious – and sure enough, at one point Kate slipped on some stairs, taking poor old Zoe down with her and leaving her with a nasty bruise on her knee.

After quite a long while of frustrating wandering, we gave up and trudged back to more familiar territory. As we neared 'our' restaurant, we noticed that the chicken cart was still there – the man had gone, but his partner was packing up. She said hello to us and I said 'No more chickens' while Sarah made clucking noises. She smiled and opened a drawer in the cart and pulled out a chicken! Hurrah! She chopped it up for us and we took it over and ate it in the buffet restaurant.