Rolling in Yangshuo

Yangshuo is a neat little town that is bordered on one side by the Li River and is tucked into limestone peaks on all other sides.  It is a popular destination for Chinese tourists and has been a fun place to spend our first few days in country.  When we rolled off the overnight bus we were met with the sight of these unusual peaks and the magical appearance of the place.  The popular computer game Doom utilized a digitized version of the landscape of this area.

The first thing we did was check into our hostel only to find that they had given us 2 rooms.  What an unexpected luxury!  Initially I was a little nervous about having the kids in a separate room but we made sure they knew how to work the deadbolt and only opened it for us.  The rooms were right next to each other and there was only one other room on our floor.

After some lunch and meeting up with rest of our small group we headed out to some of the local sites.  The attractions were worth it in themselves, but getting there On tandem bikes, in Chinese traffic, was quite the experience.  The traffic in Hong Kong was not that much different then in any big city apart from the fact that cars seem to have all of the right of way and that peds routinely get squished trying to navigate the streets.  It does not help that they the drive on the 'wrong' (British) side of the road.  Inevitably you look for traffic in the direction where it is not coming from when you attempt your crossing.  At least the mainland Chinese drive on the right side of the road.  

On the mainland, in this smaller city, the traffic is incomparable to anything in the States.  The lack analogy does not simple arise from volume, but creativity.  The road users do not merely travel in both directions, but all directions. At any given moment there will be oncoming traffic on your left, on your right, cutting across right in front of you, slowing, stopping and stopped.  There is honking at you from behind, beeping at you in front and bicycle bell ringing all around.  Imagine a very busy sidewalk and replace 75% of the pedestrians with wheeled vehicles of all sorts, 2,3,4,6,8,10, etc.  This gives a whole new meaning to my conception of 'share the road'.  Here is an image of one of my favorites.  I like it because the engine is completely exposed and it is slower then a bicycle ;-)

Over the course of our stay in Yangshuo we traveled about 50km on tandem bicycles over paved roads, gravel roads and single track.  Single track provides for the majority of our our bicycle adventures when back home, but this time the adventure was on the pavement.  Half of our mileage was in the traffic described above including a few roundabouts.  I was very frightened at first, mostly out of caution for my girls, but that changed over time.  It did not help that the first day on bikes was also the end of a national holiday and everybody and their brother was on the road.

Back home, I think traffic controls have replaced civility and regard for ones neighbor on the road.  In these wild streets it seems that there is a mutual respect between all road users.  Automotive horns and bicycle bells are not used to express dissatisfaction with another road user, but rather a means of saying "I'm here, you're there, I am passing, be careful."  I think every road biker from the states should give these streets a roll and imagine if we could 'share' like this.  Here is a Riley and self portrait during our second day biking on the only, unbelievably, quiet section of the road.

Images are in the 2013 Yangshuo folder.