"A tourist hive... and unexpected relief" Yangshuo by John195123

Yangshuo offered really the first relief in China... a dirt road, the simple thing I came here for... I didn't come to China for the overly polluted cities, with bad driving and loud spitting, for coal dust and who know what else from factories flooding my lungs... I came here to get out of that, to get away from western commercialism... and yet, so far, only in the back alleys outside of Yangshuo, where tourists don't go, did I find anything like that. Only there were the dogs and chickens running free, in mud. Only there was there brown and green of rice paddies and irrigation ditches, not grey of concrete and gaudy colors of advertisement and capital.

China has lacked something for me from the start, and this is part of it. You think of China, conjuring images of sweeping plains of grasslands, rocky mountains with the remote Wall running the ridgetops, mud, nature... you don't really think of endless colored fluorescent signs (aside from Hong Kong) and Armani and Rolex stores (aside from fakes). (Unless you've been here.) China is exotic, not a country like any other, right? Who would know any more?

But I find the real character of a place outside its cities. Beyond the annoying touts, tourist sites destroyed by tourism, stares from disconcerting men. (I mean, a guy turned around in his chair just to stare at us... and would't look away for about five minutes. I wanted to kick him... or kiss him... I didn't know what he was trying to do... annoy me or come on to me... :) Oh well.)

I just hope the real character is somewhere outside the cities, or I guess I'm somewhat disappointed in the people here. (But so many flock into the cities... see my Shanghai page). For now, I'm going to reserve judgement as I try to do anywhere I go, and just observe, just be here, and try to get past the annoyances as a good traveler should do, and hope that I find a different world outside the city limits.

Now it's time to leave "off the beaten path" behind.