Twice a week, during our month long stint in Yangshuo, Wescott, Yve, Otto and I got to bike into the countryside, to a small farming village to take Tai Chi and Kung Fu at a traditional Tai Chi School. The lessons were a blast, but the experience of biking out of the city and into the countryside was just as spectacular!
The four of us traveled away from the hustle and bustle of the city, out through the elaborate city gates and into the countryside of Yangshuo. For 40 minutes each day, we were part of the countryside scene, complete with roosters crowing, people putting out their laundry, farmers tending to their crops and commuters sporting their innovative umbrella contraptions atop of their motorbikes. We got to soak it all in…all with the backdrop of the jaw dropping karst peaks dotting the landscapes in every direction.
*****
One of the best things about traveling for a year, is I have been able to read a ton of books…books that I would have never found the time to read at home. I just finished rereading a favorite from my high school days…Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It is still an awesome book for those of you who haven’t read it for 30 years! On page 4, I was struck by a passage that made me think about our bike riding in Yangshuo…
In a car you’re always in a compartment, and because you’re used to it, you don’t realize that through the car window, everything you see is just more TV. You are a passive observer and everything is just moving by you, boringly, in a frame. On a cycle the frame is gone. You’re completely in contact with it all. You’re in the scene, not just watching it anymore, and the sense of presence is overwhelming.
I realized that THIS is what I loved about biking in Yangshuo…even if it wasn’t on a motorcycle WE got to be part of this scene! This cool, crazy, foreign, sometimes-very-scary, awesome scene!
*****
Below is a video of our bike route. It is shaky, choppy and definitely not pro It was taken with the iPad tied on a string around my neck because we lost the GoPro power cord It is a horrible video but despite the quality, you can still see the awesome beauty of the Yangshuo countryside and you can understand why it is worth trekking half way around the globe to do it yourself…enjoy
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