A Long Hike and Great Lunch

Reid here.  We had an excellent "adventure" day today in Yangshuo.  We woke up (relatively) early, had rather good egg sandwiches at our hostel, and then rented bikes and headed out to "Moon Hill" - a nearby karst that is on the tourist maps because of the strange arch shape at the peak.  We set off through town, then turned around after Dyanne pointed out that we had ridden in a circle (thankfully, it is a small town).  Properly oriented, we set off again, this time in the right direction.  Our route took us out to moon hill along a main road with the return planned along country tracks.  The forty-five minute ride was uneventful, but we regularly saw "tourist attractions" dotted along the road with parking lots for the inevitable tour buses.    (More signs of the "If there's tourists here, there must be attractions!" mentality).  My favorite was the sign for the "Real" water caves that warned you not to be fooled by the many other "fake" water caves.  I'm glad they cleared that up for me. 

When we arrived at Moon Hill, we paused at the 15 yuan entrance fee.  The guidebook had said 5yuan, and I think we were both concerned that this might not actually be moon hill, but merely a hill with a sign in front saying moon hill.  Two little old(ish) chinese women approached us and started into a pitch.  They would show us the secret locals way up for only 5 yuan.  No one should pay the 15 they said.  We conferred and decided that 5 seemed reasonable and it was likely to be a bit of an adventure.  The little old ladies took us back a few hundred yards along the road and had us lock our bikes up.  One stayed behind to watch them, the other sold us a water for 5 yuan (the one bottle we had was "no enough!" and then she took us across the street and up a dirt path.  After some climbing about we came to a bit of barbed wire that had been tied down, climbed over it and joined the "proper" path to moon hill.  Our little old lady guide had been nervously looking around the entire time until we were on the path and headed away.  We didn't see anyone except for two other little old ladies heading back down the way we had come in.  

A little while on, we found a fork that led to "Vanity" and "Moon Palace".  I chose left, Dyanne thought right.  Dyanne was correct.  We discovered this when we got to the peak of "Vanity" and stared across at the peak of Moon Hill.  Good view, but another long hike.   I considered giving up at this point, but we carried on.  The view from the peak was worthwhile.  There were rockclimbers on the "archway" segment, and hopefully a few decent photographs of the surrounding area.  I bought a mango juice from yet another little old lady to try to get her to stop fanning us and following us around.  It didnt' work, but the juice was nice.   We got to the bottom, found our bikes right where we had left them, then headed into the small village across from the hill.  Our guidebook had mentioned a good italian restaurant, Cafe Luna, here.  We followed the large sign and found Luna.  We sat on the rooftop (with an excellent view of moon hill) and had the best western food we've found in China.  Somewhat refreshed, we headed back towards Yangshuo.  We briefly considered taking the back roads home as originally planned, but the sky looked like rain and our legs felt like jelly, so we headed back on the main road.  We had a beer and a guava juice on our balcony to celebrate the successful adventure.