On Friday morning we couldn’t get our shower to work.
The instructions are quite clear:
Each set of rooms has it’s own gas hot water heater, so there should be hot water 24h a day.
If you add too much cold water, it may trigger the water heater to turn off.
There may be water pressure problems.
The water comes from a well, so don’t use more than you need.
And so it proved.
If you turn the hot water tap on, you can hear the gas lighter starting. You can smell a bit of gas as well. And then you get steaming hot water at low pressure. Then you add the tiniest bit of cold, and the hot water stops coming.
Then you rinse and repeat.
(sigh)
Seeing as we were going riding around the countryside and climbing Moon Hill, it seemed wiser to shower afterwards rather than before, so we went directly to breakfast. The selection of bicycles available was limited to those which had strong front brakes and weak rear ones, clunky or non-working gears, uncomfortable seats, or combinations of the above. In the end I settled for one which was about two sizes too small for me but had reliable gears, and then I moved the seat up a long way.
Alice’s gear lever had to be hit (firmly, just kind of al dente) so that it might change gears 50% of the time. That is, so it would change gears when you’re going downhill, but never when going uphill.
But enough about the bikes – unsurprisingly the countryside around Yangshuo gains even more scenic value when seen from a rolling bicycle, and everyone was in a playful look-at-me-riding-with-my-feet-on-handlebars mood. Or a try-and-grab-onto-each-other’s-backpacks and get a free ride mood. In between tomfoolery we had to pay attention enough to dodge the occasional villager, cow, or large tour bus approaching from behind, and a good time was being had until we made a left turn down a dirt path, came over a bridge, and stopped for a break. We waited five minutes; no Dom and no Mike. 15 minutes, no Dom and no Mike. 25 minutes and the guide, after making some phone calls and asking a passing motorcyclist to keep his eye out, suggested we might like to go for a swim in the river while we waited.
Somehow, in between unreliable gears and altering seat heights they had missed a turn off, and were getting far more than their money’s worth of bike-riding. If they had paid by the kilometre, it would have been very cheap, because once the guide had got a phone call to say they’d been found and had turned around, we took off through concrete bike tracks, rice fields, bumpy rocky dirt tracks, and villages; and they didn’t catch up until we’d gotten where we were going.
Moon Hill.
Or more precisely, the restaurant at the bottom of Moon Hill that sells cold drinks. We left the hostel at quarter-to-nine, and it started to feel pretty hot by about ten-to-nine. There were a few flushed faces when we pulled into the carpark (bike park? there were no cars), on the way dodging an armada of elderly Chinese ladies who were running out at us from the gate and offering goods for sale. I don’t think anyone in the group expected to be ambushed by old ladies attempting to be first-to-the-tourists, but that’s what happened.
Why is it called Moon Hill? The pictures speak for themselves, and what we would really like to say at this point is that climbing that hill at 11.30 am when it’s about 30 degrees is not a very good idea. I’d walked about 1/8th the way up and a French man coming down thought he would be ‘helpful’ by telling us that there were 768 steps to go from this point. He escaped with his nose intact; I had not the energy to dent it.
Alice actually went ahead of me most of the way because I was stopping to ‘take pictures’, e.g. having a sneaky rest break, while just as at the Great Wall the ladies picked someone to follow all the way up, even when we showed them the water bottles which we already had in our bags. But you can’t really tell them to go away, because it wouldn’t be very polite, and also because they won’t.
Alice: My lady was actually quite nice on this occasion. She knew I had no money (and was carrying a large bottle full of water), but she walked up with me having a chat, and reminding me to go “slowly, slowly” and sharing the breeze from her large fan. When we got to the top she went off and tried to sell her wares to other tourists. Which was a nice change from the aggressive tactics of the ladies selling souvenirs and drinks on the Great Wall.
Greg: Near the arch of Moon Hill there is a nice little rest platform in the shade where we stopped for 10 minutes or so, before those-who-must-do-such-things (Alice stayed at the first platform) found the trail which led the last 10 minutes up to the very top, that is, up on top of the arch. Up to the main platform there are easy stone steps all the way; the trail up the arch really is a trail, with tree roots sticking out and gangly shaped rocks in the way and sharp ascents. Meanwhile I got most of the way to the top only to meet June coming back down!
The view from the top, need I say it, is worth the climb. And with no womenfolk about, Mike, Dom, Adam and I were free to remove our shirts and cool off temporarily.
On the way back down we found that the group had gone on without us, but of course they were waiting at the restaurant, where our included lunch was served. I don’t think there was a scrap of food left on any of those plates.
We were promised that the ride back to our hostel was much shorter, but that didn’t mean there was no more trouble coming. We rode through more rice fields, past old ladies waving water bottles, water buffaloes dozing in the river, and stopped at a village school were Steve gave some of the kids little stuffed koalas. In between that village and the next Dom and Adam had even worse problems with gears not changing and chains slipping off, but we had picked up another guide named James from the Moon Hill restaurant, so our yellow-shirted guide Sam could wait ahead and James could follow behind.
So we waited in another tiny village for Dom and Adam; I’d forgotten James would be coming through so I thought it would be a good idea to go back and see if they had managed to continue, although what I really wanted was to ride that 500m section of bumpy trail we had just come through at full speed, instead of the speed of whoever was riding in front. So I had a great time doing that but when I got to where they had stopped with bikes upside down to put the chain back on, there was no one there. I turned around and rode back to the village, at top speed, and… there was no one there. So I kept on riding through, got to a turn and caught sight of one of our group riding over a bridge in the distance, and rode off that way. Over the bridge I found James waiting not for Dom and Adam, but for me, having already taken them back to the group via a shortcut he knew.
That was secretly perfect; it meant we had to ride quickly to catch up. We went flying along a small length of wide dirt trail, and then turned back onto another 3m wide concrete bike/motrocycle/truck path. I was just changing up gears when the dreaded hiss began. Three seconds later the dreaded hiss stopped.
My tire was flat. Flat as a Dutch hayfield.
Sam and James stopped. They had no puncture kit.
Would I like to wait here for the motorbike to pick me up later? No.
Would I like to get a double with James while Sam held on to my bike and dragged it along with him? OK.
The path was mostly flat, having neither large hills up which one person could never ride with another person sitting on the back of his bike, nor large hills down which one person could have an extended break. So after five minutes I got off and jogged for a while up one hill (which was fun with my backpack on in the heat), then coasted down the next hill, then took a turn of riding the bike with James having a rest on the back. We went on like that for maybe 2km, and eventually came upon the main group waiting for us. You could say they were amused by the sight of us flying down the incline with James sitting side-saddle on the back.
But the fun ended when we came to the next section of bumpy path. Even though James was riding now the ride on the metal frame at the back was none too comfortable, and we couldn’t get much momentum happening over the rocks. So I got off and jogged again, counting the bruises in between my knuckles, and was very relieved to come around a corner about 5 minutes later and see the entrance to the hostel. After a beer with James and Sam we went straight upstairs for a cold shower, which was just the thing.
With our core temperatures resuming normal limits we settled into the outdoor restaurant area for an afternoon of sitting around, talking, walking up the pool table, and trying to hold out until 5.30 to order dinner. Having actually done some exercise everyone was starving. The menu showed fried noodles with egg and vegetables for 10 yuan, and I looked no further. The hotel information booklet informed us that free WiFi was available, and that one needed to go to the pool table area. Down by the restaurant it was intermittent, but that was party central, so everyone stayed there and I sat by the pool table and uploaded lots of pictures to go with the posts from Russia and Mongolia where we had only had time to put up the text.
We slept well that night.
Greg
