There was another Australian girl and an American bloke staying at the hotel and so the 5 of us hired bikes for the day and went down to the ferry dock to arrange a trip downstream to the town of Fuli.
They charged us 12 FEC each for the 10 FEC trip because the “minimum number for the trip was 6” supposedly and then we set sail on the rundown boat, with our bikes stacked up on the bow.
A couple of other people were also on the boat (making a total of 7) and we resolved to get our additional FEC each back when we returned.
The boat trip down the river was quite short – about 30 minutes – and when we got to Fuli we cycled back to Yangshuo which only took it about 30 minutes anyway. All of it was a lot of money to pay for an hour’s worth of sightseeing and the scenery wasn’t that great anyway. We did get our two quai (the Chinese slang word for Yuan is “quai”) each back though.
After lunch, Linda, Janita and I biked out to Moon Hill, about 4 km south of the town. The scenery out there was much better with a maze of hills interspersed with farmland and small rivers. At the Big Banyan Tree, we were amazed to see a horde of Chinese tourists wandering around. There was an array of touristy camel rides and other paraphernalia that was targeted to the Chinese tourists, who were swarming all over the area. The Moon Hill park was about 2 km past there but as it was now overcast and gloomy we decided not to climb it and cycled on by and down a dirt road that led behind it. We found a spot to sit down and relax for a while in the peaceful rural surroundings with nothing around us but farmland, a quiet stream and a few animals.
The ride back to town was quite speedy as it was mostly downhill and we took the bikes back then retired to Lisa’s for the rest of the day.
CurseOfTheTraveller 