One of the highlights of our time in Yangshuo was definitely cycling along the Yulong river and the countryside surrounding the town. Neither of us are sporty; we like gaming, reading and watching Netflix so… What did we decide?
To cycle 27km along the Yulong river. Well, actually, we were meant to cycle much less than that but this is what actually happened:
We hired our bikes from our hostel, we hired two city bikes for 10RMB each. We started from our hostel and cycled to the start of the cycle path through Yangshuo (note: mopeds are the rulers of the roads, trying to keep up was definitely something else) we then reached the cycle path by Gongnong bridge, following the river up towards the Dragon bridge. The path was smooth, other than a few bridges with stairs where we had to pick our bikes up. However, it was worth the effort, what a gem! The calm river flow was only ever interrupted by some makeshift single line rock bridges where locals were washing their laundry, there were green mountains surrounded the area and farmers working their lands.
We stopped to buy some oranges from a very cheerful woman in her 80s and we made it to the Dragon bridge. Our plan from the beginning was to get a bamboo raft and take the bikes (and us) downstream to the start so we will only have to cycle part-way back to Yangshuo, well, that just didn’t happen.
When we actually, finally reached the Dragon bridge, nobody would take us and the bikes on the raft (apparently they started regulating health and safety on the rafts) and we were very lost. We carried on cycling upstream as our maps had flagged another raft station. It turns out that after some very confusing translating and a lot of money handling (we think we paid 250RMB for the raft and 20RMB per bike transported) we managed to reach an agreement. We were going to go down on the raft and they were going to drive our bikes to the end point (wherever that might be).
We got on the raft and started the descent, the rower was really not motivated, his interest was more in loudly gossiping with his coworkers than anything else and as a result we ended up with completely soaking wet feet and bums (every time you go down a rapid, the raft would submerge a bit). The romanticism and mysticism of the landscape was just overthrown by the anticlimactic chat and our freezing feet and buttocks.
What seemed like 1h later, we arrived at an unknown location somewhere along the Yulong river, we got off the raft on our wet clothes and aimed to try to locate the bikes, after asking around we found them next to a dumpster. To our surprise, we were not at the end of the path as we thought but halfway through and with only 2h of sunlight left! Now, super cold and grumpy, we rushed our way back to town and the hostel to get a steamy shower.
It goes without saying, we ached the next day. But it was still all worth it!
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