Wayfinder Ali: China

Yangshuo cooking school

The Yangshuo cooking school was an awesome experience. The school has beautiful views- we ate our dinner in an open air dining area overlooking large rice fields, gardens and big beautiful mountains. The teachers there speak very good English and taught us both Chinese cooking techniques and local Yangshuo specialties.

The cooking set-up is two long tables of students facing each other. Each student has a single burner gas stove and all the tools he or she needs. The teacher is at the head of the two rows. We gathered by her as she demonstrated each dish before we made it. When it was our turn, she talked us through it as we cooked.

We made a total of five dishes. Pictured here are stir fried bok choy, eggplant Yangshuo style, stir fried pork with carrots, green beans with bell pepper, and steamed chicken with goji berries, Chinese dates with rice wine. We also made minced pork dumplings but they were the appetizer and I ate them before I thought to take a photo.

The cooking class at the Yangshuo Cooking School taught me the secret to really good eggplant and how easy it is to make really diverse food with just a wok and a few ingredients. I'm excited to share the flavors of Yangshuo with my friends and family when I get home.

Climbing in Yangshuo

The sleeper train pulled into a city I can't remember the name of and I was actually well rested. From there, we walked through the warm mist to the bus station where we could get on a bus heading to Yangshuo.

When the Karst mountains first appeared on the bus ride, I thought we were there, but Yangshuo is not at the beginning of the range. The Karst mountains seem to just go on forever. The landscape is absolutely captivating. The mountains look like fingers reaching out of a pool. I had a similar feeling to the ones I had Yosemite and in the North Carolina mountains- hugged and protected by the steep surrounding mountains. Unlike North Carolina, the land between them is flat and slow moving rivers wind between the towers. This flat, lush land is perfect for agriculture.

Once in Yangshuo, we headed to the staff flat and climbed up to the roof. Even on a hazy day, the view was stunning.

We had the rest of the day to ourselves, so we decided to spend a couple of hours climbing. Tony, Fernando and I piled into a taxi to head to the closest crag- The Wine Bottle. The approach was easy but extremely muddy and I almost fell countless times. Wine Bottle is a nice crag, and we had the place to ourselves. The only problem was, there is the "Butterfly Cave" across the valley. The Butterfly Cave is a big tourist trap and there are loads and loads of buses dropping off and picking up tourists so we found it annoyingly loud. Sometimes it was hard to communicate with the climber because of all the honking.

This is the view from the top of the climb:

Looking down at Tony and Fernando:

After climbing we had a HUGE meal at a really awesome Chinese restaurant and then enjoyed the scene from the roof again. They illuminate the mountains at night, and although it is completely unnatural and probably ruins stargazing, it really is awesome. Because of those lights, everyone can enjoy the beauty of those mountains even at night.

Overnight Train to Yangshuo, China

Last week, I was lucky enough to be sent to China for a Dragonfly program. I got to visit Yangshuo, a place that has been on my list for quite a while. Yangshuo is in a valley surrounded by the stunning Karst mountains. Yangshuo is world famous for its beauty and also world class rock climbing. More on that later :)

To get there, we left Hong Kong via the MTR and crossed the border into China where we hopped on an overnight "hard sleeper" train. This was my first overnight train experience! I thought the train was very nice and clean and relatively quiet. There are six people sleeping per little doorless "room" so it is quite tight. The middle and top bunks are too low to properly sit up in. Often people snore, babies cry, people fart and smoking is allowed in the spaces between cars so much of the experience depends on who is around you. Lucky for us, we didn't experience too much of that and I had a good night's sleep.

Here is a photo of Tony's bed. Don't let the GoPro fool you, it is not as spacious as it looks.

My bunk

In the above photos, the train is very empty. When we got on, there weren't many people at all. That all changed when we pulled into Guangzhou and our peaceful train filled to the brim with people. A family from the UK pilled into the compartment next to mine and we started chatting and sharing snacks. They even took a selfie with me. There is also a Chinese lady in the photo who I think realized what was going on and decided to smile too.

We did experience some banging and bumping when the train started moving and came to a stop and a few other random times. I think it probably had something to do with the hydraulics between the cars but I'm not sure. The first time it happened, I was unnerved but I got used to it. On the way back we rode with the school kids. One of the teachers was a bit freaked out by it. She has been on many overnight trains in Europe and they are very smooth with no jolting. I guess the trains in China are safe. No one seemed upset or nervous and it happened both on the way there and on the way back, so I guess the bumping is normal.

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Yangshuo cooking school

Climbing in Yangshuo

Overnight Train to Yangshuo, China