Moon and Mud in Yangshuo

Our first bike ride took us to a natural arch in one of the area limestone peaks called Moonhill.  This was interesting but we have been spoiled by the arches in Utah.  There were a few climbers scaling up the rock when we were there which added to the attraction.  The draw for us was the view from the base of the arch from which you can see the valley below.  I snapped that image of Tara standing in that spot in the previous post.

Next stop was a cave structure that was discovered a few decades ago and since commercialized.  Who thought there could be commercialism in China?  Actually, there is more and more every day.  They did a good job with lighting and displaying the shapes of the cave.

One of the fun parts were the names that they came up with for the various creatures that you could see in the shapes.  I am sure those same names in Chinese are descriptive and maybe even culturally relevant.  English translation will be a recurring theme of amusement for the remainder of the trip.  I mean no disrespect as I am sure it is equally entertaining when we try to communicate in their native tongue.  We were met by this sign as we entered the park.

I suspect this sign is the equivalent of 'Slippery When Wet'.

How about this sign presumably from the local tourist board.  What means this?

The mud baths were the site of the first disappointment for my girls, and it came at my hands.  The let down was realized when I informed them that they could not submerge themselves in the mud.  Upon entering the mud bath area of the cave complex you were met with a subtle stench and that is when my mild OCD kicked in.  When I was considering the mud baths I was assuming it was a natural bubbling flowing kind of bath, not sure where I picked up that image.  This bath really did not seem to be a bath but a slough and given the general lack of sanitary consideration that I have observed in China, I had to set a mid thigh limit.  That was met with much disappointment from the girls.  It was an interesting experience though, the mud was thicker than I expected.  The 'hot springs' were about the same gross factor equivalent.  There appeared to be no flow to the water as you could not spot any drainage.

As it turns out, the cave, the mud and 'the hot spring' were not the real attraction, the girls earned that honor.  This was our first day in mainland China and not the start of, but a great increase in our hearing phrases similar to "so beautiful".  Not surprisingly, most Chinese people have not seen many, likely any, actual Caucasian children especially the likes of our two beautiful little girls (doting Dad).  Our guide for this leg, who is Chinese, says that most people from the countryside have never seen white children.  Multiple times an hour we would hear "how beautiful" and feel all eyes, cameras and affections toward the girls.  For instance, while browsing inside a store some random guy yells in "beautiful".  We first experienced this with Chinese folks in Venice and the again in D.C. of all places.  Here they are in the cave with their minions.  KuThat guy on the right must have taken a hundred pictures of the girls.

The girls have been both amused and grossed out by the toilets and have started to keep some visual record of their experiences.  Here is the flushing mechanism in the girls bathroom at the cave.  The buckets are filled to the tipping point then they empty into a trough over which you have carefully squatted to do your business.  After the 'flush' courses through the female trough, it makes its way through the male trough.  Chivalry is not dead!

I think Tara has been getting more posts out then me as she has been hitting the iPad as often as she can.  When Riley protests Tara retorts that she is blogging.  Riley then attempts to make her case by saying she needs to email her friends.  Tara closes the case by saying "emailing is only for friends, blogging is for the world."

It was today that I discovered that I had lost some weight, not body weight, but clothes weight.  One of my favorite travel shirts and a few other things were lost.  I originally thought that the oft repeated unpack, repack, unpack cycle had failed, but my final conclusion is that they never came back from the laundry in Hong Kong.  Now they are just another Ancient Chinese Secret.

Images in the 2013 Yangshuo folder.