Living my very own Amazing Race and Lost in Translation: Yangshuo: 3 days spent "in a painting" :)

For quite some time I had this dream of going to see the famous scenery painted on the 20 yuan bill...so this time traveled with my friends from Latvia to one of the most famous tourist destinations of China - Yangshuo (nearest airport is in Guilin).

Sooo....
Breath-taking natural scenery with karst peaks..
Mysterious ancient local dwelling houses..
Li River & Yulong river..
Some hiking...
And quite some fun times ;)

Here we go - landing - breathtaking views!!! :)

Yangshuo :) The view from our hostel roof terrace!!! As we got there for the first time to see the view there were quite some "wows" :)

Climbed one of the hills of the town for a different perspective

Night fun on the rooftop terrace :)

Zole :) (THE GAME of this trip ;) For those of you not familiar with the game...I got perfect set of cards to win ;)

Breakfast on the rooftop terrace :)...I could have breakfast with such a view every morning ;)

This lady was selling hard!

And then we start our journey to Yangdi town by local mini bus where we plan to start 24km hike along the river till XingPing town. Great plan, not so great weather. Weather was actually perfect for a hike, but river was flooded,so we were told: no hiking and nobody would take us across the river to the start of the hiking trail... so we changed the plan and took the bamboo raft down the river till Nine-horse-fresco-hill (the names are just something ;)) and from there hiked some 8 km till Xingping :)

Cruising Li river instead of hiking :)...the views are fantastic ... the hills appearing out of fog and then disappearing again...

Some 30-40 min on the raft and the shortened hike can start :)

Arriving in XingPing village: this is the famous 20 yuan bill landscape...but we were so excited about the landscape all around that we completely forgot about the "MUST" picture with the bill, so we`ll try to "fake" the famous place during the hike next day ...the peaks are all around ;)

Entering XingPing village

Perfect place for creating...

This lady seemed so cool with this basket of eggs...but wait till you see what I saw as she was passing by....my jaw dropped ;))

Nice burden ;)

XingPing village

Peaking into a club in Yangshuo :)

Sunday - we are still determined to hike! Today we`ll attempt Yulong river hike (20 - 25 km along the river :) And this fisherman seen in Yangshuo was definitely a good sign ;)

Again by local minibus we have arrived to the starting point of our hike! And it turns out we still have a couple of kms to walk till the "official" start of our planned route. Can tell now that during the whole hike we met some bikers, but there was no one else hiking around there...felt good :)))

On the road finally :) Felt like being in a beautiful painting...pure pleasure :)

Dragon bridge - "official" start of 20 - 25 km hike :) We never figured out the exact length ...anyway started around 12:00 and returned to Yangshuo around 19:00...no rush, swimming in the river on the way and some other "halara" moments :)

Not bad location choice for the wedding shot ;) I actually really liked the old man at the back!

Hmmm....right or left...of course, left!!! :) Our hiking path was full of choices like that :) And we were sure that as long as we stayed close to river we would find the way ;)

"FAKE" 20 yuan bill view ;)))

Posing ;)

Endless fields

Me & the river dam waterfall (used as the bridge ;)

Panorama...

The man & the watercow

A dream place! Since I came to China I had this image of wild China...beautiful rice fields with water and breathtaking landscape around, so when I saw this..it was exactly like had imagined!!! Deja vu ;)

One of the villages on the way..

Rice panorama :)

Cows after having a mud bath ;)

Planting rise

Time to cross the river on this raft :) Quite cool :)

Just the perfect time & place for a swim :) The day was real hot & steamy, so dipping into refreshing Yulong river was better than any SPA bath ;)

Sun is slowly setting..

Rice fields..

Hiking back to Yangshuo through little villages :)

Village life

And in the evening we finally made it to the "Impression Liu Sanjie" performance! 2 previous night it had been canceled because of flood. It was extraordinary! Masses of people involved, boats, lights...!!! IMPRESSIVE!!!
The large-scale performance Zhang Yimou's folk musical, "Impression Liu Sanjie", is a popular extravaganza performed outdoors in a river and mountain setting with a cast of 600 singers and dancers. It took 5 years to be completed.

Yangshuo market. This was the first time I saw dog meat sold int the market...next to live dogs in cages.. And even though I`ve never had any problem eating meat or seeing it bloody in the market... dogs were a bit too much for me, so no photos of dogs... instead something else!