We’d decided on our last day in China to hire a car and driver and see some of the places it was too far to cycle to. We met Mark (English name) and set off at 11am. First stop was a tea farm about 30 mins away. We were first taken around the farm by Mark, showing us the tea terraces and walking through the farm.
Stunning scenery all day and it is very hard to capture with photographs
We were rubbish pickers as we had about three leaves in our basket, but some people from Hong Kong who are staying at our hotel had picked quite a pile. They are apparently going to share them with us later, when they put them in Soup or eggs! We’ll see what that’s like!
After picking we had a tea ceremony when they explained about teas as we tasted them. We ended up buying some of their own green tea!
From here we went to a view point overlooking the Li River. Bit of a hike up hill, but the view was worth it.
We kept meeting people from our hotel all day, spending the second half of it with a young German couple who’s own driver sadly did not speak English. From the viewing of the river we went to an old stone village. Mark took us around and explained quite a lot about the village. Bit like going through Coleford in the 15thcentury, but that’s how they were living now. Only the old folks are left, and some of them were as old as 70. Bit depressing on one level!
There is a huge area in these mountains that the villagers grow kumquat.They have only been growing these trees for the last ten years, the revenue apparently is vastly more than growing rice and they have therefore become comparatively very affluent. The groves don’t look very attractive because they cover all the trees in plastic for protection.
From here it was onto wait for the sunset over the Karsts. All together a really enjoyable day.
Supper at the hotel, going to taste what the Hong Kong folk have got for us. Off to Hong Kong tomorrow.
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We are a couple of whimps because we decided we could not face the 7 to 8 hour bus journey to Guangzhou and then probably another 3 hours to get into Hong Kong from there and then finding our hotel arriving very late in the evening. So, we are flying instead as there is an airport in Guilin which is an hour and half away from Yangshuo. The flight time is one hour ten minutes, the only down side is that it is an 8.00 am flight out of Guilin which means a 5 am leave from the hotel.
