China is an enormous country with 4/10 of the World’s most populated cities. After visiting the tech city of Shenzhen and spending just a short day in Guangzhou, I really needed to escape the busy streets and crowds. I’ve never seen so many people in my life, it’s crazy… So I was thankful to be journeying into the interior of southern China to discoverer my favorite Chinese party town! Home to just over 300,000, it’s really quite small for China. It’s called Yangshuo, and it’s the perfect place for a countryside bike tour!

Today, Yangshuo is one of China’s most popular tourist towns and one of the most beautiful landscapes I’ve ever seen. The town emerged in the 1980s as a world-class rock climbing destination thanks to some traveling Swiss climbers. By the mid 1990s, other Chinese began making the trip to Yangshuo for a relaxing and affordable vacation and development in the area really took off! I’ll outline the best way to book a climbing tour in my next article! Get your camera ready, no filters needed here because you’ll see stunning mountains that stretch endlessly into the rich blue horizon.

A Bike Tour of Yangshuo

On my first full day in Yangshuo, I met two other travelers: Ben & Angela from the United States and Northern China. We grouped up and headed out on what would become a very very long bike tour of the countryside. Thankfully we had the maps.me App to guide us, well sort of…. Make sure to have the right map apps for your trip!

We headed out of the town and found ourselves surrounded by tourists taking photos along the riverside and on the bridge. Not one to do what everyone else is doing, I decided to lead us off the main road deep into the countryside but not before taking some absolutely ridiculous photos!

We passed small villages, farms, orchards, a lot of cows, and children playing in the street until the road ended, turning into a mud path. This is when things finally got interesting…. The map said this was a road, but in reality it was more of a pasture trail. Well,  we came all this way, time to adventure into some new and strange places no foreigners have ever been before! Time to see some untamed China! The life far away from the busy tourist district… the real uncensored life of rural China.

Walking our bikes through the rice paddies, we passed old men fishing along the riverbank, women tending to plants and we slowly got completely lost and covered in the bright pasty mud. It turns out country life in China isn’t too different from the rural life in most countries. People farm, tend to their animals. It’s a quiet, slow and friendly!

Exhausted from having to pull our filthy bikes through the grassy trails and mud, the locals we passed just smiled and laughed. Even Angela who spoke mandarin found getting directions nearly impossible. It took over an hour to find another country road, by this time the sun was setting over the nearby mountains and the mosquito began to swarm around us. Luckily the dried mud from our waist down provided a natural barrier to bugs. Tired, muddy and grinning, we finally found our way back home! It felt like home after what ended up being a 5+ hour tour. Not bad for $2 each!

West Street, AKA Party Central

West Street is the place to go for everything! Shopping, food stalls, restaurant, bars and dance clubs, you can find them all on West Street. If you can make your way through the thousands of tourists lining the street, the majority of whom are Chinese from other parts of the country, you’ll find places with open mics, live musicians, electronic DJs, rock n roll, and even the occasional country song playing.

During the day, you can visit the local market stalls for fresh fruit and vegetables… something you might be desperate for after a week eating fried or boiled foods. Since China is one of the “Only drink bottled water and never fresh salad countries“. Of course, there is also a McDonald’s and Starbucks in case you or your bowls need any western comforts.

Tired of singing and dancing? Or simply not your thing, try some of the amazing outdoor food stalls serving local cuisine, fried meats, lotus root, fresh oysters, delicious soups, ice-cream and more! For me, I really liked the crayfish! Never had it before! I wasn’t as fond of a grape flavoured beer… tasted like grape soda bathing in Budweiser. My Chinese friends have always told me that authentic Chinese food is amazing! I’m embarrassed it took me 23 years to try it! Plus, you can eat like a king for $7-8 USD! It’s so cheap!

The best part of West Street is that your hostel is likely only a few minutes walk away and the area doesn’t have any of the sketchiness of other party places like Bangkok, Hanoi or Siem Reap. Unfortunately, you still get the bad English names for bars and businesses… like “The Tramp Bar”. Tramp meaning “wandering traveler looking for work” or “walking heavily”… not sure which they were going for. It’s a small town with everything you need for an awesome night in one place! People are friendly, enjoying life and looking for some adventure!

Getting to Yangshuo, Guangxi 

By express train traveling at 250km/hour, it takes only 4.5 hours direct to Xingping. If you look far ahead out the window at that speed, you can see all the small villages and rice paddies of rural China. Otherwise, it’s all just a blur. The express trains are by far the best deal for travellers moving around the interior and worth the extra expense.

From Xingping, It’s a short bus ride to the tourist town of Yangshuo. Hostels range between $4 and $8 per night. The newer ones are a short walk outside of town but will have more amenities like pools, pool tables and better bikes to rent. I recommend checking out the Mountain Stream Hostel. I also stayed at Wada Hostel but I wouldn’t recommend it. Another great option for seasoned climbers and boulderers is Climbers Hostel. Of course, anything rated 9.0+ on Hostelworld is a pretty safe bet for a great stay and Yangshuo isn’t lacking for great and cheap places to stay.

For transportation in town, you can walk, rent a bike or take the local bus for 1 Yuan (0.20 USD). I recommend taking the bus at least once! It’s the way the locals get around afterall! No matter where you are in the world, elderly ladies on the bus are essentially the same!

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