Hike up the garden path

After our slightly soggy experience yesterday, we started attempt number two to appreciate the truly incredible surroundings we were in. The hike from Yangdi to Xingping (about 25km) is generally thought to be well worth the footwork, taking in the most scenic parts of the Yulong river. The weather forecast was for just light rain, so we were hopeful.

The  view featured on the 20 Yuan note.

The first change of plan came early on in the day – the hostel was having a hard time finding taxis to take us into town (not sure if that was due to the weather or because all the taxi drivers had hangovers from the moon festival celebrations…) and asked us to share with a couple who were going on to Xingping. “Aha!”, I exclaimed. “That’s sort of where we’re going, we could save money by sharing the cab all the way there and then do our walk backwards.” And so it came to pass that we arrived in Xingping just as it started to rain again. We had wet weather gear with us, but this hadn’t proven overly successful in Fuli so we decided to go native and buy umbrellas. The Chinese use umbrellas all the time – to keep dry in the rain and to keep the sun off when it’s warm. Sun = tan and tan = peasant, so generally they’ll use anything they can get their mitts on to shield their skin from the rays, lest they get mistaken for a country bumpkin of low social standing. (If you’re lovely and pale, you’re obviously rich enough not to have to do any hard yakka in the fields).

We weren’t sure exactly where our walk started having just a two paragraph description from the Lonely Planet to go on. We headed for the river and soon came across little maps showing the river and surrounding villages. We were also met with what we later called bamboo attacks – you just could not move for people shouting “Bamboo! Bamboo!”, wanting us to take a boat. You get fed up of saying, “No, thank you,” but ignoring them doesn’t work either. They seem to think you didn’t hear them the first time so follow you for longer. Trying the truth doesn’t work either. “No, thanks, we’re walking.” “Oh, no! Too far! You can’t walk!” “We can get there in 5 or 6 hours, right?” “Yes.” “Well, that’s fine then.” “Bamboo!”

We found what we thought was the right path and I started asking people we passed at regular intervals whether or not we were on the road to Yangdi. We thought the trail might be marked seeing as, when you start it from the Yangdi end of things, you have to buy an entrance ticket which covers the three river crossings you have to make on the way and because the LP described it as a “hiking trail”. No signs in sight, so we just pushed on, sticking close to the river. Everyone we asked confirmed we were heading to Yangdi, so all was well, if increasingly damp.

We set out on our walk ready to get a little bit wet – we knew the weather forecast and bravely thought, “Pah! We don’t mind a little rain! We’re British!” What we’d completely forgotten to take into consideration is that it had p***ed it down all day the day before and we were in the countryside, where asphalt roads aren’t the norm. So it wasn’t long before we were doing a merry little dance on our tippy toes, trying to find solid bits of road between the puddles. Our shoes were soon completely caked in mud and getting heavier by the second. We had to keep stopping to scrape the worst of it off. We also splashed a not insignificant amount of mud up the backs of our legs, for added effect. And the rain got heavier. “This isn’t little rain,” I thought. “This is big ole fat rain a la Forest Gump!”

And so it continued. We finally got to a slightly firmer bit of road, which made walking easier, but we’d also walked quite far away from the river by this point. The odd person we did meet did still confirm we were heading for Yangdi so on we fought. We got to a busier section again, where the familiar shouts of “Bamboo!” awaited us. The main problem with these bamboo shouts is that when I asked “Is this the way to Yangdi?”, the standard reply was “Bamboo!”. “No, I don’t want to take a boat, thank you. We’re walking to Yangdi. Is this the right road?” “Oh, too far. You’d better take a boat.” “No, really, we’d like to walk. Is this the right way?” “Bamboo!” [SIGH]

We’d reached the river again by this point and the chap I’d chosen to ask for directions spoke with a very strong local accent so I couldn’t really understand what he was saying. He struck me as a slightly shifty sort and kept pointing to the river and telling me we’d have to go that way. I couldn’t tell if it was one of the river crossings we had to make or if he was just trying to get me onto a bamboo boat come hell or high water, but he was adamant that the river was the way to go. We spotted a bigger boat ferrying people from one side of the river to the other, so decided this must be a crossing.  I tried checking with some younger people also waiting for the ferry, but they turned out to be the local ASBO/Hells Angels and weren’t very friendly so I left that at that.

No surprise when the ferry captain demanded payment for taking us across. “If we’d bought a ticket in Yangdi, this would be included, wouldn’t it?” Not on your nelly. So for the princely sum of 40p, we got ferried across to the other side of the river. Here there was a fork in the road. I’d barely got the words “Yangdi” out and one chap was already pointing which way to go. After that, we didn’t meet anyone for quite a while. And the river got further and further away again. And the rain got heavier. And then there was a big hill – we were pretty knackered from our holiday so far and two days of illness and hills had not been part of the deal!

Another fork in the road and some friendly holiday makers who assured us we needed to continue on up the hill to get to Yangdi. (“You should take a boat. It’s too far to walk.”) Up the hill we went. We were getting a bit suspicious by this point cos it just didn’t seem like a hiking trail any more – we were pretty much walking on the road. A village loomed up ahead with a crossroads and signposts. Aha!

Unfortunately, the signposts only pointed us back to Yangshuo and three other places we didn’t want to go. No mention of Yangdi. Three sullen looking chaps were lounging around in the local shop. “Is this the way to Yangdi?” “Where?” “Yangdi.” “Never heard of it.” Eek.

We picked the direction opposite to Yangshuo and decided to ask the next people we met instead. The next people were two little old grannies sitting in their doorway, highly amused by the laowais approaching them with wary smiles. “Is this the way to Yangdi?” Old Lady 1: “Where?” “Yangdi.” Old Lady 1: “Yakayakayak.” “Pardon?” Old Lady 1 “Yakakayakyakayak.” Old Lady 2: “Yikety-yak yak.” Bums. I couldn’t understand a word either of them was saying. But they said a lot of it and were obviously trying to be really helpful. At one point they decided that Yangdi was that way. That way being the direction we’d just come from. In the end, I called our hostel (Chinese mobile phone network to the rescue again!) so that they could talk to one of the English speaking girls who would then translate for me. But we were in such a remote place with no obvious landmarks that the girl at the hostel wasn’t much help either. She couldn’t tell where we were and therefore couldn’t tell us where to go. We had to give up. It was raining pretty heavily, we were both cold and wet and fed up. But this was a teeny tiny village. No buses here. Back to the shop we went to reacquaint ourselves with the sullen chaps and see what price it would take for them to drive us to the next town on their motorbikes. We had to agree to whatever they said and luckily they only wanted Y30 each (about three quid).

But the back of a motorbike with a bloke who’s not that pleased to be out in the rain isn’t a very comfortable place to be. I was scared stiff most of the time, particularly when my driver sped off with me, leaving Gav behind. I tried to turn round to make sure I could still see him, but ended up with a comedy twisted raincoat look where I just looked at the inside of my hood. Classy.

The ride did end up being quite fun in the end and the chaps were an awful lot friendlier when we handed over the cash, telling us where we would have to go to catch a bus back to Yangshuo. And it’s something to tell people, innit. Far more interesting than “had a nice walk in the countryside, all went smoothly.”