As you relax in the centre of Yangshuo you are surrounded by limestone hills. Yangshuo’s beauty stretches much further than the town and these surrounding hills. It’s a great idea to head along one of the rivers on a bamboo raft amongst many other activities available (mud baths, cycling etc.). You have two choices of where to get on a bamboo raft:
1. The Li River
2. The YuLong River
When you are based in Yangshuo you will be overwhelmed with Chinese travel companies who organize trips on the river. Agree to a price before you set off.
Once at Baisha, on a random street corner there is a connecting bus you need to get that takes you to the riverside where the bamboo rafting starts. The second bus leaves you where the Bamboo Rafting starts, an area known as “Golden Dragon Bridge” but it’s not really a settlement.
This price will vary. We went for a two hour cruise downstream to a remote village called Jo Yuen and the cost was 180 RMB per person. We opted for our own raft with two seats and one guide.
Bamboo Rafting near Yangshuo consists of 10 bamboo stalks joined together to form a raft. There are two seats on it and you sit there while a “driver” steers and veers you downstream. On the way down you will be able to sit back and relax and enjoy the tremendous countryside around you! On the way down you might be told that certain rocks and hills resemble things such as frogs, lions etc. While admittedly some of them do, it’s hard not to laugh at this – I’m used to Chinese people exaggerating things so this was no surprise.
There is another option you can do – and the Chinese go crazy for it — two groups of people sail together on two rafts and have a waterfight using water guns!
After rafting, you end up in a small village known as Jo Yuen which is in the middle of nowhere! To get back to Yangshuo from here you’ll have three main options:
1. Hire bicycles
2. Ask a bus, coach or mini-bus to take you back to Yangshuo
3. Hitch-hike
It’s only about an hour maximum by bicycle so we hired a tandem bike and headed out albeit in torrential rain!
Bamboo Rafting on the Yulong River near Yangshuo:
Jonny Blair is a self confessed traveling nomad who founded and blogs at Don’t Stop Living. He sees every day as an adventure. Since leaving behind his home town of Bangor in Northern Ireland ten years ago he has traveled to all seven continents, working his way through various jobs and funding it all with hard work and an appetite for travel. Don’t Stop Living, a lifestyle of travel’ contains over 1,000 stories and tips from his journeys round the globe. He wants to show others how easy it is to travel the world, give them some ideas and encourage them to do the same but most of all he aims to constantly live a lifestyle of travel. He is currently based in Hong Kong and on Twitter @jonnyblair.
