16th December: Yangshuo, China

We quickly abandoned plans to hire bikes for the day and chose the healthy option of spending the morning eating various bread products instead. It was actually a productive morning getting on top of a bit of planning and also looking after ourselves by resting.

We hatched a new plan to visit most of the places we were going to go to on bikes using taxis instead. First though, lunch! We found a small café in the old town which cooked us up some very similar regional dishes to last night – braised aubergine, although this time with green beans; and braised tofu and green peppers in an umami sauce – plus an additional fried pumpkin dish. Suitably energised, we ordered the DiDi northwest to the Yulong River. The 15km ride only cost £2 and saved us the hassle of an out and back cycle along roads.

Our first spot was Fuli Bridge. This is a high half-moon bridge over a tributary, which seemed a popular spot for photos. Someone had hired a couple of cormorants for their photos and incredibly they were doing as she asked as if trained dogs! The scenery wasn’t quite what we were after, so we soon moved on in another Didi.

This time, we walked through a village and past kumquats and lychees to the Yulong. It was glorious in the late afternoon light as we walked a few kilometres downstream. Aside from the occasional raft, there were no tourists at all. The fields were being worked with an incredible array of crops. Karst peaks towered all around and reflected spectacularly in the becalmed waters of the river. As the sun fell behind the mountains, its rays darted between the peaks and lit up the smoke from stubble burning. Farmers worked the fields as dogs watched on and the occasional noisy old tractor clattered in the distance. This, finally, was picture postcard rural China.