Yangshuo: Bamboo Rafting!

Sandwiched in between a man barfing into a plastic bag on my left, and a woman holding a chicken on her lap to my right, my bus to Yanshuo finally arrived! (The chicken was really funny because every once in a while it would just start screaming. Not clucking. Screaming). Hilarious.

Also a very happy story: In Longji, the camera that I've used this entire year (but only 11 months old) died!!! I was super bummed, and stressed, because cameras are expensive and work to find a good one and then learn how to use it. On the streets of Guilin while I was walking to a camera shop, I passed a stand on the street selling old cellphones. I didn't see any cameras, but I figured that I would ask anyways. The woman pulled out one camera from her table of cell phones. It was my exact same camera!!! I bargained down the price, seeing as I didn't need the battery or sim card, by writing numbers on a pad of paper. They did not speak English, and I do not speak Chinese! Voila...it was a deal! All of the following photos are from my new, lucky camera. Happy Emily :)

Joey and I had a relaxing day. All we did was go BAMBOO RAFTING on the Yulong River (which I'd been looking forward to ever since seeing a friend's Facebook pictures a few months ago). Our hostel arranged a van to pick us up and drop us off, and for about 2 hours and 20 minutes the two of us just floated down the river in our raft. It did get a little bit boring, but the scenery was drop dead gorgeous (as you'll see in the pictures below!) Besides, I think that we both needed some down time. Stuck on a raft, nothing to do but relax. Exotic limestone mountains and cliffs jutted out in all directions. I couldn't believe that we were in China, and not Krabi, Thailand!

There were also little "waterfalls" which we went down on while in the raft...exciting!

Bamboo rafts along the Yulong River

It was a cool day

Joey and me!

Random Chinese family

Peace!

Horrible. This man had tied a string around each of these 

birds' necks so that they could catch fish and bring it to his 

bucket, but they couldn't swallow the fish themselves.

The Chinese loved this.

Jazz hands! I made Joey do it

Now a nice picture

Calm water

This looks like it could be Alaska, Montana, Washington...

but it's Yangshuo, CHINA!

I like this one too

A docked bamboo raft

Ahh, perfect morning for a 2 hour raft :)

Glistening water!

The view!!!

I couldn't get enough

Water buffalo, and a flock of happy white ducks

Gorgeous mountains in the distance

Downtown Yangshuo

(Kind of surreal seeing the limestone with no beach!)

Our wonton soup lunch!

This doesn't really have to do with anything, but

Chinese "Skippy" peanut butter!