Leap of Faith

Teacher's wise words, "It's better to be moving than to be stationary" were heeded as we crossed the chaotic streets of YangShuo on our rented bikes.

N.B. Don't let the emptiness of this road fool you.

These pictures were taken at our retreat before we got to the madness of the town streets 

The theory being that the Chinese are able to navigate better around something that is moving, because they can predict the direction.  For me it was a leap of faith; pedalling my bike behind Teacher in the hope that we get to our destination in one piece.

Our destination were the caves that were located about an hour by bike outside the town of YangShuo.  Fear aside, the trip was actually fun.  Teacher was in charge of the map.  You would hear her shout out (in Mandarin) from time to time at the locals to check that we were going in the right direction.

The cave that we went to was one that was recommended to us, called Golden Cave.  It was a cave that had formations of Stalagmites and Stalactites, as well as a Mud Bath and Hot Springs.

Our tour guide through the cave was a lady called Lucy.  I expected her to provide an explanation of how the caves were formed and a bit of a history in terms of how old the caves were.

What we got was a description of what the different formations looked like; anything from breasts, to elephant ears, to sea animals.  A little amusing as we were more than capable of coming up with our own interpretations.

The 'education' part of our tour ended when we got to the Mud Bath and had a chance to literally muck about.  The Mud Bath was surprisingly cool, which made getting into the Hot Spring more refreshing.

Lunch was a pit stop at a cafe on the street to try the local dish; Li Fish cooked in Beer.  It was spicy and tasty, although I wasn't able to eat much; I got put off by the Chickens that wandered in and out of the kitchen and the area where the dishes were being washed.  When I caught one of the staff feeding them the left overs it was enough to diminish my appetite.

The bike ride ended with a stop at Jianshu Temple.  Randomly the key attraction here were the 2 hard back turtles.  Their reason for being in the temple was lost on me, but nevertheless they were very cute.