I don't remember ever sweating so much. Yesterday was a difficult day. With 35 degrees and 80% humidity outside, I was covered in sweat from just walking from my room to the bathroom. But, stupid little me decided to go on a bike ride, and so I did.
The road started off nice and paved, with great views of the Yulong River and the hills that surround it. The heat was overbearing, but I managed. After a while, and for no obvious reason, the paved road just stopped and turned into a very narrow dirt road, running through rocks and bushes. This is where I started to think that maybe this track was more than I could chew.
Soon, the dirt road crossed a bridge above the river and became paved again, then it started twisting through tiny farmer villages. It was obvious that the people living there are very poor. Most houses were made of bricks and were not plastered, they didn't even have windows, just naked bricks and concrete. I saw some farmers working in the fields and scared a way a few groups of chickens.
The problem was that this whole road didn't have even a bit of shade, and if I didn't mention it enough by now, it was very very hot, and by this point I was so soaked in sweat that if I jumped in the river it wouldn't have made any difference. Even more ominous was the fact that I was beginning to run out of water. I did a quick evaluation of my situation and decided it would be much wiser to not complete the whole track (which was about 4 hours long) and instead turn around and head back. I was 1.5 hours in so that means 1.5 more hours to go back, with roughly half a bottle of water left.
It is also worth mentioning that the last time I rode a bike was four years ago, and the last time before that was when I was about 12 years old, so to say the least, I'm not used to riding a bike. My legs hurt, my ass hurt, my hands hurt, I was beginning to think this whole thing was a bad idea.
Of course, on the way back I made 2 wrong turns and had to ask locals for directions (using hand gestures and 2 of the very few words I know in Chinese - tzai nar, which means 'where?'). The 1.5 hours turned into 2 hours, and my water ran out way before I reached my hostel. I was on the verge of getting a heatstroke - I was already feeling the headache and the nausea that come with it, when I finally got to my air-conditioned room. It was 1 pm and I didn't want to do anything else that day. I took a very cold shower and got into bed.
However, by 4pm I was getting bored. My dorm room is empty (8 beds dorm and I'm the only one here), the hostel is quiet, there's nothing interesting around it besides the river, and I wanted to do something, anything. So I took a taxi to Yangshuo city and explored it for a while. It's very touristy, with lots of souvenir shops and touristy restaurants and bars. After an hour I was again drenched in sweat, because even though the sun was getting low and wasn't beating down on me anymore, the heat and humidity did not let go. I found a large supermarket that was air-conditioned and just strolled inside, just to cool off. I didn't even buy anything.
And that was my day. Maybe not very exciting, but with the weather, my jet lag, and my general wish to keep things slow and relaxed, I think it was good enough.
Today I woke up not feeling too well. All my muscles hurt from the bike ride yesterday and I had an uncomfortable nausea. I wanted to go to a village called Xingping, which is a 40 minutes bus ride from Yangshuo, but I gave it up. Instead I did some research for the rest of my trip, and rearranged some of the days I had planned.
It's 3pm now and I'm feeling a lot better than I did in the morning, but the lady from the hostel said it's too late to go to Xingping now, since the last bus back is in 6pm. So I guess this is going to be a rest day, and tomorrow I'll go back to being Lior the Explorer.
Can't publish these posts with pictures for some reason, don't know why. Maybe I'll just post them on Instagram or Facebook or something.
