After sleeping in from our late night out, Reid brought breakfast too our room yesterday morning so that I could sleep in. Which was very sweet, becase in addition to the late night, I've been fending off a sore through and general "icky" feeling. I took some Zyrtec, Sudafed, and Ibuprofen and figured I was in good enough shape to head out for a short bike ride.
We rented the 10 yuan bikes from the hostel that happen to be city bikes without great steering and no suspension. They were also both girls' bikes. I cannot remember the last time I went bike riding, so we decided that we'd set off for a little while and then turn back. For some reason we decided to head towards Dragon Bridge on the Yulong River, for which Lonely Planet describes a 20 km loop. I figured that we ride for a bit and then turn around and head back home. Well, a little ways in a helpful scooter-ride pointed us the way towards Dragon Bridge and when we stopped at a little bridge to take some photos and consult our map. He showed us where we were and, according to the free map from the hostel, we were nearly to Dragon Bridge. So, we continued along our way.
From that point on, we were riding on a higgedly piggedly mud or sometimes gravel road that wound its way between peoples homes and along their fields, so that at times I was afraid we were going to veer into someone's backyard. No one seemed particularly offput by our presence and we often called out a "Nihao" that was often greeted with a "Hello." But the sights were just incredible. The fields framed by the karsts. The Farmers leading their Water Buffalo for their baths. Chickens wandering freely. Cows tied up alongside the road grazing and looking at us dolefully as we rode by.
After riding like this for quite some time, we had no idea how off track we might be and our legs were getting really tired. If Dragon Bridge wasn't nearby, we were heading back. Although, at this point I wasn't sure that going back was any faster that going forward. Luckily, Reid found a nice Chinese gal who told us it was close by and sure enough, a little ways up and we hit a main road that we followed for a few meters until we saw a sign tellings us to turn left for Dragon Bridge.
I'm not sure what all the hype about Dragon Bridge was about. I think it's just an old bridge. We did pick up some cold tea and water from the vendor and fend off touts offering to sell us Bamboo Raft rides back down the river. I was half tempted by the raft ride, but figured we could bike a bit longer and then jump on a raft a bit further down. At this point, my butt was pretty sore from being constantly jostled on the bumpy road and our bikes had no suspension, so any divet or bump translated directly to my bum.
So we crossed the bridge and headed back on the other side of the bridge. The map shows that the route we were supposed to be on follows the west-bank of the river. We found the initial trail fine and then at a little fork in the road, I decided to head left since this would take us back toward the river and I figured the closer we stayed to the river, the less chance we'd have of getting off track and wandering too far west. Well, the track went for a ways and then started getting narrower and narrower. The steering on our bikes was pretty wobbly, so it wasn't very easy to keep them on a narrow path. Eventually, I gave up and jumped off the bike to walk for a bit. By now we were walking in between fields and rice patties with irrigation ditches down below us. The path was not wide enough for me and my bike to make it through, so I made for some tough maneuvering, until the path pretty much dead-ended. So, we took some photos of us lost in the middle of the fields and headed back to the fork in the road to resume our travel.
As we made it further South and West back toward Yangshuo we rode through another part of the path that got very narrow and didn't seem too well-traveled. There was a Chinese graveyard built into the side of a Karst to our right and not much too our left. I nervously asked Reid whether he thought we'd made another wrong term, but neither of us remembered seeing a turn off. And, sure enough, the patch eventually widened back to its normal width. I guess the path narrowed a bit because there wasn't much space between the river on our left and the karst on our right.
We were then back at the Yulong River and crossed back over to the East side. We opted not to take a ride on a bamboo raft and this point, although I really regretted it later as we had to pick our dinner spot based on who had the most padded chairs to sit in. It was a great day and a wonderful ride and I was pretty surprised that we accomplished a 4 hour 20km ride when we had just set out to tool around a bit.
No comments:
Post a Comment