YangShuo (阳朔)

…again. I did this very same tour already once in February this year. But it was exactly what I wanted to do again when coming to YangShuo once more. No difficulty convincing Rita and James either. And so we got 3 bikes and set out. With me now knowing the way we could save some detours and everything went very well and nice, until….somewhen later.

YS_20070723_110646.jpg: Harvesting rice in the ubiquitous rice fields arond YangShuo. The rice in the fields was in very different states of maturity, some ripe to be harvested, other fields just harvested, yet others looked like half-way through, in yet other fields farmers were just planting new plants. We quickly got the impression that they are farming here all around the year.

20070223_123701_Yangshuo.JPG: To confirm or counter this theory I thought of a picture I had taken in February, which is this one (5 months ago, nearly eactly to the hour),..

YS_20070723_111207.jpg: …and did basically the same picture again (though I forgot that the original one was portrait, not landscape…sorry) at the very same spot, looking into the very same direction. In February all fields are just empty. Now in July some fields are empty, but they look like just harvested (some stalks still protruding through the water), other fields have fresh green plants.

YS_20070723_112003.jpg: Anyway…at the moment you find all kinds of maturity, embedded in the every same beautiful landscape.

YS_20070723_112011.jpg: Yea…as said…rice fields in beautiful landscape.

YS_20070723_112240.jpg: Or ducks.

YS_20070723_113924.jpg: But mostly rice fields 😉

YS_20070723_115739.jpg: We met very few other bikers, it was pretty hot. Quite OK as long as you moved, but if you stopped for a good picture you could cut the standing hot air with a knife. Rita and James ahead of me on the road here, some farming device parked to the left, the ubiquitous limestone hills forming the backdrop.

YS_20070723_120309.jpg: These farmers emerged from their lunch location shortly after we passed and briefly rested in the shadow of a tree. I have a series of 4 pictures how they walk up the street, and the smiling front guy keeps smiling through all this pics, though he cannot possibly know that he got photographed as I did these picture hidden as hip shots to preserve the farmers naturalness. Especially watch his oversized golden front tooth, possibly the reason for his everlasting smile 😉

YS_20070723_120324.jpg: He again against a backdrop of house ruins and hills.

YS_20070723_121530.jpg: Ripe rice fields…until the limestone hills cut off the horizon. Doesn’t look unlike wheat fields back in Germany, in the end its all some kind of descendant of grass.

YS_20070723_130133.jpg: Harvested fields next to fields, of which I cannot identify what’s growning on them. In the background the Li River and…yea…limestone hills.

And not too long thereafter our attention turned away from taking pictures: Rita fell off her bike unluckily and for no reason we were able to reconstruct. Nothing really serious happened, but on the stone-covered dirt roads she suffered from some bad cuts, which we could only very provisionally look after and which must have hurt badly. One cut was especially deep and urgently needed to be properly cleaned and desinfected by a professional. Rita stood it great but understandbly couldn’t go far any longer.

As it so happened it was shortly before reaching our planned turning point, i.e. as far away from YangShuo as possible. We turned around and could for good money convince the owners of a truck to bring Rita, accompanied by James, including their bikes, back to YangShuo to a hospital. I returned on my bike. In the end we happened to return our bikes nearly at the same time with Rita been seen to by a doctor. The rest of the day was mostly a relaxed search for coffee, dinner, and beer. We found all 😉

Today’s Lesson: If something happens, you’re as far away from home as possible.

Categories: Asia, YangShuo

Originally Created: 07/24/2007 04:04:55 PM
Last Edited: 07/24/2007