This weekend’s trip to YangShuo consisted of a legend of a tour guide, a missing wallet, a damaged phone and passport, some sort of binoculars device and several outrageously hung-over interns. The 8 hour bus journey each way was not enough to put of the 16 interns whose perseverance was rewarded with a great weekend away.

Friday

We set of on Friday night, where we shared a bus with local Chinese people who were keen to interact with ‘foreigners’ and get to know us despite the language barrier. There we were first greeted by a tour guide who was a pivotal figure through-out the trip. Although he did not speak too much English, his facial gestures and enthusiastic attitude was infectious enough to make everyone fall in love with him. By getting people to stand up, make a speech and sing to the audience, he helped make the bus journey go a little bit quicker.

Saturday

We eventually arrived in YangShuo at 6.30 in the morning which meant there was so much room for activities! After breakfast we set off on a boat ride along the beautiful LiJiang River where we saw the famous mountains that can be seen on the 20yuan RMB note.

After we had taken enough pictures and enjoyed the wildlife including water buffalos and a never ending line of ducks we took a bus to the Yinzi Cave. This scenic cave was made up of impressive sights including a deep underground river and waterfalls that made it distinctive to any other cave in the world.

After the cave visit we settled down to some traditional Chinese cuisine before heading out on different activities. The first group set off to explore YangShuo further and by hiring scooters, they were able to go off-road to hidden, undiscovered areas. This allowed close up pictures of the local sights to be taken and everyone who was a part of it thoroughly enjoyed it.

The other group went on to butterfly spring, another scenic cave trip and got to see a Chinese show where singing and dancing in colourful costumes commenced.  As the day drew to a close, we arrived at our hotel and got ready to explore the YangShuo nightlife. We set of for dinner at 7pm and the drinking began. We were provided by San Hua a Chinese spirit that was shared between both interns and locals. This helped top of a great day with an equally eventful night. The night involved Philippe leading us on a failed search for waffles, drinking and dancing in some of the local bars and Max jumping in a river with his passport and phone.

Sunday

Sunday morning therefore started with a few sore heads and Joe moaning about how he had lost his wallet and his English rail card.  There was no time to nurse a hang-over as we quickly went off to the Yulong River to partake in some bamboo-rafting. This could have been the perfect opportunity to sit back, relax and get some peace but it did not turn out that way. Our favourite tour guide urged everyone to buy water guns which turned into a big water battle between rival rafts. Once you were out of sight of the other rafts, there were chances to get food and beer without getting out of the water which was pretty pleasing. After we were back on land we headed to a restaurant to get some duck soup before heading back to Zhuhai.

Overall our trip to Yangshuo has to go down as a success and is a place that is definitely worth a visit. A big thanks to everyone for coming and hope to see you on the next trip.

Calum